Lightning, hail storm cause quite a bit of damage to this Airbus 320... Amazing it was able to land safely in Denver!

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3190510/Delta-flight-make-blind-emergency-landing-hail-storm-gives-plane-cracked-windshield-damaged-nose.html

 

Best regards,

That's pretty amazing.

Good job!

I'd hold the congratulations until the result of the investigation for this one.

I concur with Kevin. (100% this time! ) There's some likelihood that the pilots made some sort of a serious "operational mistake".

 

The landing might have been an autoland.

 

http://avherald.com/h?article=48a8329f&opt=0

I'm trying to figure out what investigation is going to be conducted as I did not read any comments about that (although I know the NTSB has to do an obligatory investigation whenever there's an emergency).  But should the investigation be on whether the pilots should have avoided the weather?  You mean they might have gone into the weather on purpose to get to Salt Lake City faster?  Based on the link provided by olli4740, passengers tracking the flight said the aircraft diverted to the north so it appears they were trying to avoid the weather. 

 

In any case, I say, congratulations to the pilots for bringing the aircraft down safely and saving a bunch of innocent lives!!!!

 

Best regards,

Actually, the NTSB has no requirement to investigate this. As far as I can tell, there is nothing here that meets the criteria for the NTSB be involved. And neither does the declaration of an emergency itself require an investigation. However, the FAA can and does investigate anything or anybody they choose at any time. And this will definitely warrant the attention of their POI.

 

The investigation will likely focus on how those guys ended up flying into a thunderstorm. You may think they are heroes, but is someone really a hero if they put the innocent lives in danger in the first place through their own negligence?

Pretty interesting how the nose was obliterated, but the fan blades look in decent shape. I wonder what sort of engine damage occurred (if any).

Actually, the NTSB has no requirement to investigate this. As far as I can tell, there is nothing here that meets the criteria for the NTSB be involved. And neither does the declaration of an emergency itself require an investigation. However, the FAA can and does investigate anything or anybody they choose at any time. And this will definitely warrant the attention of their POI.

 

The investigation will likely focus on how those guys ended up flying into a thunderstorm. You may think they are heroes, but is someone really a hero if they put the innocent lives in danger in the first place through their own negligence?

Okay.  Thanks for the clarification.

 

Best regards,

That doesn't make sense. FAA and NTSB will be investigating this as they are supposed to:

 

http://kdvr.com/2015/08/08/delta-plane-makes-emergency-landing-in-denver-after-windshield-is-shattered-by-hail/

 

Cheers,

http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr;sid=bdbd83b90630a32f49bc9b59cc3b8605;rgn=div5;view=text;node=49:7.1.4.1.12;idno=49;cc=ecfr

 

You can look at the ntsb notification requirements yourself if it doesn't make sense to you. The article you linked again only says the FAA plans to investigate. But given the publicity, I suppose everybody will probably want to get involved now whether they are required to or not.

Just saw this line in a related article from The Denver Post: "The plane dropped 14,000 feet in altitude over a two-minute time span."

 

-7000fpm seems pretty unlikely. Would be nice for a Airbus pilot to chime in...

 

Jim said / wrote, "In any case, I say, congratulations to the pilots for bringing the aircraft down safely and saving a bunch of innocent lives!!!!" I agree, but, if the crew was in the wrong in the first place they only redeemed themselves.

 

Regards,

So FlightAware shows that the pilots were steering the aircraft to the southwest in a clear attempt to go around a large weather front that had severe cells within.  However it does not show any intent to fly into the storm.  So, not certain why this would be implied by anyone in this thread.

This is a more detailed analysis of what they did.

 

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/stuostro/comment.html?entrynum=33

 

They tried to squeeze through a gap that closed up in front of them and ended up flying through the worst part of the weather.

If you look at more than just what was cherry picked... they diverted south to avoid the large front... the small front built as they proceeded and then it cut them off.  They did nothing wrong.