Passengers on a Delta flight got a scare on Friday night when hail smashed the cockpit windshield and damaged the aircraft's nose cone.
Delta flight 1889, which was scheduled to fly from Boston to Salt Lake City, made an emergency landing in Denver late Friday after encountering the rough weather over the Nebraska-Colorado border, according to CBS Boston.
“I fly constantly and this was the scariest 10 minutes of my life,” passenger Robin Jones told Fox 13 in Salt Lake City after arriving there Saturday morning. “I thought, ‘OK. Have I told everybody that I love that I love them?’ And as soon as I realized I had done that, I was like, ‘I’m alright. Everything’s going to be OK.’”
Denver International Airport spokeswoman Laura Coale said the plane experienced "severe turbulence." One person was later taken to a hospital.
"There were times when we felt like the air dropped out from under us. We could see lightning spider-webbing over the wings and hail pounding the plane," passenger Beau Sorensen of Provo, Utah, told the Denver Post. "Babies were crying. Some young teens behind me were screaming and crying."
Sorensen and other passengers posted images of the damage to the Airbus A320-200 on social media:
The damage to the plane's windshield was so severe that vision was compromised during landing, The Denver Channel reported, citing audio of the pilot's conversation with air traffic controllers.
The pilots also reported that the aircraft's weather instruments had failed, according to The Aviation Herald.
However, the plane, which had been carrying 125 passengers and five crew members, landed safely.
Passenger Rob Wessman checked the flight data afterward and said on Twitter that the plane dropped about 12,000 feet in less than a minute.
After it landed, passengers got a look at the damage.
“We went around the corner and from the window we could see the shattered windshield, we could see all over the engine where lightning had struck, we could see the nose of the plane was missing… it was really intense,” Wessman told CBS Denver.
Wessman also tweeted the experience:
A Delta spokesperson told CNET that the plane landed "without incident" due to damage from hail.
"Passengers were re-accommodated on another aircraft," the airline said. "The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority."
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