Now picture this: you’re on a flight and idly scrolling through your phone when the captain suddenly says, “We’re about to hit a rough patch. Boom—chaos in the sky.
There were over 200 passengers onboard when the plane mid air experienced sudden hail. Now that is real turbulence, the kind that makes your heartbeat race and palms sweat.
Among the passengers was Sheikh Samiullah, a startup founder from Srinagar, who gave a first-hand account of the event on ex (previously known as Twitter). “Everything was moving smoothly till the unexpected hailing started,” he said. Sheikh also mentioned that this was a truly different experience and was terrified.
Still, it gets even crazier. The level of intensity was so crazy that the nose of the plane towards the cabin was unbelievably damaged. People even reported screaming and extensive panic spread throughout the cabin.
Still, the flight – IndiGo 6E 2142 – got the chance to land in Srinagar around 6:30 PM local time. Sheikh said that after the ordeal he felt like he was ‘reborn’ which indicates that he is one of the passengers who experienced a second coming of sorts.
IndiGo has not yet verified whether there was damage to the aircraft’s nose, but did acknowledge that the flight encountered a severe hail storm. They did, however, confirm that all necessary safety protocols would be adhered to and all crew members would be on standby before takeoff so the aircraft could be fully checked prior to departure.
There has been some bad weather that has disturbed air travel in India recently: flights to and from Delhi, Chandigarh and Kolkata have all suffered delays, diversions and cancellations due to thunderstorms and heavy rainfall. There was even an advisory issued by both IndiGo and Air India asking passengers to check their flight status prior to arriving at the airport.
The jet’s speed is well over a hundred miles per hour, so there vastly limits what can be done when nature unleashes ice. Airports are fighting hard to keep things in check, but as expected are tossing nature’s raw ice at a jet mid-air. Thank you to the pilots and crew for their amazing work on controlling what is considered the scariest flight of many.
