NWA A-320 Hail Damage

[Shore Guy]

Air Safety Week reporting that a NWA A-320 was severely damaged by hail near ATL in March. May have to be reskinned.

Any further info?

[bigbusdriver06]

There were two A320 hail incidents in Europe in approx 2003 & 2004 - MyTravel & BMI. So far as I can recall, both had shattered windscreens and damage to leading edges and engine intakes.

What is it about A320s and hail? Do other types ever get zapped like this?

[bluepilot]

???

Easyjet B737 about two years ago, severe hail damage A/C written off i believe!!

[MaximumPete]

It happened to a Britannia 737 a few years ago over the Alps. I think was written off as well.

[BOAC]

bbd06 - try this link. the only common 'European' link is that it happened in Europe

NB You'll have to ignore the 'spotters' tantrums' there.

I saw the aircraft mentioned here and it was trashed!

[Cytherea]

EZY B737-300 Hail Damage

The Ezy B733 wasn't written off...flown to FLS(now SRT) Dublin and had a month in intensive care - all DV windscreens shattered severe damage to skin, all leading edges replaced (including vert stab), engine nose cowls and to cap it off major body repair around FO's eyebrow window...I have heard tell of $750K in spares alone..Insurance paid out tho...

[Mr @ Spotty M]

MaximumPete

It was more than a few years ago, more like over 30 years ago.
The aircraft was G-AXNC and was repaired.

[Paterbrat]

During a 727 maintainance period with Air France in Paris some years ago we parked next to a Syrian Arab Airlines 727 which had spent about 30 mins airborne and made an emergency return. Having been familiar with the well known pictures in met manuals of 'trashed' aircraft had been blissfully unaware of what could happen to 'large' aircraft. I was, besides being truely horrified, also baffled as to just how it had remained airborne at all. There were gaping holes in fuselage 'cheek' areas just aft of the cockpit. Radone and nose section substantialy damaged. All leading edges had suffered major damage and re-shaping. Controll surfaces had all sustained damage. Engine bullets pierced and flattened. Pitot tube fronts split and splayed out. Cockpit windows completely smashed outer layers gone. The fact that it had returned safely was testament to among other things Boeing's 'tank' build, and a salutory lesson on the destructive power of thunderstorms right by airports
I would venture in the cost-concious building of today the old overkill on structure has most likely given way to lighter and perhaps thinner construction. It might be interesting to speculate on relative damage to two airframes, ancient and modern, encountering a similar intensive encounter.

[lomapaseo]

With all these so called trashed airplanes I'm not aware of any that have sustained a loss of control due to control surface damage.

The worst that I can recall were about 3 incidents with interior damage to engines from trying to process the hail at low power.

I would also think that replacing the leading edge surfaces/radomes and windscreens would be the appropriate repair along with dent removal to the upside surfaces if it was a ground incident.

So has there really been any scrap-out of underage big airplanes for this or were they already beyond their economic life?

[cwatters]

Dimpled golf balls fly better than smooth ones.

[Paterbrat]

'trashed' aircraft I was referring to were light aircraft. In the older US met manual it was a single piston Beech. In newer manuals it is a substantialy damaged AV8 which no doubt remained flyable. Know of some Jet aircraft that sustained some hail damage none that were written off. The Syrian Arab was at that time being restored by Boeing engineers to flying condition. The DC9 that encountered the extremely large storm in the US lost both engines but I seem to recollect did make a forced landing on a motorway, and obviously retained flying surfaces and controlls.

Yes dimpled golf balls do fly further there is an extremely interesting aerodynamic article which also goes into the optimum number and depth of those holes.

[jettesen]

Look on airliners.net, go to photo search and easyjet incidents, you have about 5 pics of the damage there

[Pub User]

Dimpled golf balls fly further because they spin backwards. In doing so the dimples help pull the airflow down at the rear of the ball, ie the aiflow along the upper surface travels further than that along the lower surface. Thus the spinning, dimpled ball creates an aerofoil effect, and gives itself some lift.

Aeroplane wings don't spin, so the dimples wouldn't help.

[pigboat]

The US flight was Southern 242. They attempted to traverse what they thought was a saddle between two cells, but which because of radar attenuation was in reality a level 5 CB. Both engines were corncobbed, the radome was torn from the aircraft and both windshields were smashed, along with associated damage to all leading edges. They actually got the aircraft on the ground, on a rural highway, but they hit a light standard at a gas station with the right wing during the roll-out, and the aircraft veered into the pumps and caught fire.
The ground based radar return and a computer generated weather radar return of what - in all probability - they were looking at in the cockpit at the time they decided to fly that track, along with the CVR and ATC transcripts were part of a weather radar training course I once attended.

[Paterbrat]

It was a very interesting part of the weather course we were doing on the 727 course with Branniff at the time. I would submit that at the end the DC9 could perhaps be considered a 'TRASHED' aircraft.