If you look at the wing and inlets in the first photo - there isn't any obvious damage - maybe some small dents, but nothing like that Easyjet stab... I'm actually a bit surprised there isn't more visible damage to the wing and inlet leading edges.
I grew up in Southeastern Colorado - golf ball size hail was not particularly uncommon. And while I personally never saw anything much bigger than golf ball size, buddies experienced baseball size.

This site has some interesting graphics..Stu Ostro's Meteorology Blog : Meteorological analysis of flight diverted by hail damage | Weather Underground

hail damage..........
 

ok according to some media that seemed to know what was up......they said they flew this bird BETWEEN two level 6 supercells that closed in on them faster than expected. Another commercial machine also got rocked around but evidently escaped the bigger hail.........and in a weird quirk of fate the pax in the back were watching on some of the laptops as they hit the cells, they had better WIFI info than the pilots did.............

Just a question, the radar appears destroyed, doesnt this couple with the autoland?

Underfire, there is no connection between the two systems.

I'm with Pontius Navigator and others on this one: the images available here show little or no sign of damage to the starb'd engine intake or wing L/E. Very odd, but we await better pictures.

Re the nose cone, experience suggests that once the paint and surface of the composite is breached, and the honeycomb underneath exposed (and maybe saturated), the structure is too fragile to withstand the dynamic pressure at cruise IAS. Hence it has collapsed like a ping-pong ball and into the radar antenna.

I wonder if they opened one of the D/V windows for the landing, neither of which look damaged. (That would require cabin depressurisation, of course.)

From a report of the audio clip, don't have a link to the clip itself,

"Apparently Tower said they were operating with "normal operating bright" and asked the pilots if they wanted the lights brighter since they had problems to see forward.

"Pilots reported the front windshields were severely damaged but they could see at the sides."
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Thanks Tub for the link to the radar. imagery In trying to thread through the eye of a needle, they found that the eye had become an explosively developing supercell when they reached it. As it happened, they appear to have flown through the worst part at the worst time.

After a Delta 747, N664US, was severely damaged by hail over China in June, it was subsequently sent to the graveyard.

http://media.bizj.us/view/img/6333201/unknown-11.jpg

Other images here:
Hail pummels Delta's N664US Boeing 747; NWA's "Spirit of Beijing" may face scrapyard (Photos) - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal

On some aircraft types, including the A320, the (ILS) Instrument Landing System has antennas behind the radome, so there exists the potential for both radar and autoland to be inoperative if the radome suffered enough damage.

Also, some aircraft have a metallic strip stuck to the inside of the curved radome surface which focusses/concentrates the ILS beam (from the groundstation). Google revealed that in one case, a missing director/reflector strip contributed to an air incident.

Rgds
NSEU

Surely they must've tested the ILS prior to an ILS landing?

Does anyone have more details here? What altitude were they at when the hail hit... cruising I assume?

Why were Delta trying to fly between massive cells? I thought the US airlines were more prudent about flying through large storm cells...

JSmith

JSmith, the Flightaware log (roughly one+ minute increments) indicates 34,000 feet and 411 knots.

The planned routing on Flightaware had them skirting the south edge of the thunderstorm complex east of Denver, rather than going to the north of it, the latter being a more direct route into Salt Lake. Perhaps, while enroute, the thunderstorms developed where they didn't quite expect.

And if the tests fail? Do they not land? :}

I'm sure there are all kinds of very unlikely scenarios. e.g. the radar antenna plate breaking off and sitting in front of the loc and G/S antennas. In this case, perhaps there would be too much shielding for the aircraft's ILS antennas to get a strong enough signal for the entire length of the glidepath and rollout?

I'm not familiar with the A320. How does the A320 handle loss of ILS signals (display pointers removed? flags?)? How does the system handle slightly or greatly disagreeing commands (between ILS systems). Whatever, I assume the crew, in most circumstances, would be able to determine if the signals are valid (i.e. by the aircraft telling them so and by manual periodic height/distance-from-threshold crosschecks).

The ILS antenna can be seen in that photo of the aircraft in the hangar on the previous page. The item which looks like a bathroom towel rail below the radar antenna is the Localizer antenna. The somewhat smaller one below that is the Glideslope antenna. Typically, these types of antennas contain two elements for two ILS systems. Does the A320 have a third ILS system?

Some more pictures.

Source: Jeff Johnson

http://i.imgur.com/ZDPrjrX.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/UA8z7pV.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/TJ0dK8Y.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/34oHYVr.jpg

Avionker

Many thanks for clarifying that!!! I thought they were protector strips but lightning diverters makes more sense :ok:

Regards

Speedbird

As asked before by 748Ti, does anyone know what radar was fitted?