Was the wheather a factor. Quite possibly it was. For Southern Air flight 242 it most certainly was. It flew into heavy wheather, got peppered with golf ball sized hail stones, suffered compressor stall, the crew in compliance to ATC instructions increased power initiatiating a climb to a higher level and in doing so lost both engines for good. They managed to get out of the wheather but were unsuccessful in their attempts to dead stick it onto a highway. The aircraft was a DC9 and as we all know the MD83 is a second generation DC9. So could this scenario or something similar been replayed in this instance is the question.