i was in gva on sat am, and our ground engineer had been to see the a/c in the hangar. The damage is as you see it, all the leading edges badly damaged and landing light covers smashed, However the fan blades were unscathed, no damage at all!! Boeing are on their way to fix a/c apparently.
Airport rumour had it that they had avoided the first CB and got caught in one hiding behind, shrouded by first, or were caught in overhang!
jeez, the airpalne is destroyed....new nose cone, windows, cowls, leading edges. stabilizer......some one is going to get the brunt of someones pointy shoes.
Was just reading the report on the "open-top" B737 incident out in Hawaii. Decided that if they can withstand that and land then if I ever get the choice, it's Boing. Built to take a pounding.
Boeing is a pretty useful aircraft but they do have their rudder problems. as to the BMI incident...I'm not familiar but would suggest if the A/C looked like Easy Jet and the Captain didn't land ASAP I wouldn't want to fly with him.
And I won't say "well done" (or "badly done") to the pilots - does anyone know whether they did "well" flying the aircraft (suspect apart from poor vision (!) it handled OK), or "badly" (flew into a CB everyone else avoided...)
And I don't know whether it was a "well built aircraft" to withstand "such a lashing of hail", or so poorly built to suffer such damage from a couple of bits of light hail!
I've only made a few posts so I don't feel the need to order a Personal Title and help support PPRuNe
Join Date: Sep 2000
Posts: 207
A little Dickie Bird told me that the BMI Airbus that got pebbledashed a few weeks ago is actually an insurance write-off. Not only would it need all the usual leading edge bits replaced but it would need to be completely re-skinned. Not only that but it suffered some unseen structural damage during the episode.
We await the report on that one as it would appear that there was much more to it than has been mentioned so far.
EASY JET 73 -v- HAIL STORM
