Published on : Wednesday, June 6, 2018
The Airbus A319 was carrying 130 passengers and five crew members ran into a storm over New Mexico.
It forced pilots to divert to El Paso International Airport for an emergency landing around 8.03 p.m. MDT on June 3.
No injuries have been reported as a consequence of this incident and all passengers safely deplaned in El Paso. The flight took off from San Antonio at 6.57 p.m. Thereafter it encountered a violent storm when the flight was into an hour and a half into the flight.
A new aircraft was assigned to flight 1897 and passengers were taken the rest of the way to Phoenix late Sunday night.
The hail has beaten up forward windshields quite badly for American Airlines 1897. One of the pilots mentioned to Air Traffic Control over the radio that the aircraft did not have enough visibility.
Passengers elaborated the experience to regional news stations stating lightning and hail were visible out the window and violent turbulence caused phones and drinks to go flying as people started vomiting and panicked.
The crew however made a perfectly safe landing even though the windshield and nose cone had sustained heavy damage.
American Airlines said in a statement that the aircraft is currently being evaluated by their maintenance team and have issued an apology for the inconvenience caused to passengers due to such an incident.