737 in hailstorm

Good one, frankvw! 😀

They couldn’t understand the tower? 😉

The problem is, Matt, that both (or all 3 or 4) engines will probably have sustained identical damage. My first port of call would be the vibration gauges but I wouldn’t be looking at shutting anything down That would only be an option if you could guarantee there was no damage to the other engine. It would be time to cross your fingers and follow the line in the Boeing QRH (presumably Airbus say the same) ‘Plan to land at the nearest suitable airport’. This was one of the strangest things in the bmi incident – why the hell did the crew continue from overhead the Alps to Manchester rather than dive into Munich, Zurich, Frankfurt, etc?

All modern aircraft have colour weather radar these days but are only as good as the operator trying to use it. I was in the sim last week with a guy who was following the bmi A320 and who was sunsequently involved in the AAIB enquiry. Apparantly the bmi crew had turned on their weather radar but somehow failed to notice that it was deflected fully down giving solely ground returns so they switched it off!!!

wrt engine hailstone ingestion, the manufacturers will make all sorts of suggestions about what forces of nature and birdstrikes their engines will tolerate but it wouldn’t stop you worrying if you had it happen for real. Bearing in mind that in a typical high bypass turbofan 80% of the thrust comes from the cold bypass air which is solely propelled by the big front fan, I’d still be crapping myself if the engine didn’t flame out!

Aren´t B737 supposed to have advanced weather radars (with the red dots and all that stuff) to prevent this?. Scarry indeed.

Originally posted by wysiwyg
Yes, big time.

Even on the 777…….i was watching a programme the other day and they showed the B777 engines passing a hail storm test.

There was a large hailstorm in my area the other day with hail about hte size of golfballs, I wonder how often this sort of thing happens. I’m not sure if any aircraft ogt damaged in thursdays storm. Have there ever been any serious accidents due to hail storms in recent years?

It’s quite amazing that this easyJet aircraft and the British Midland A32x landed safely then. Obviously could have had disastrous consequences.

Originally posted by T5
Would hailstones cause damaged to the engine if they were sucked in?

Yes, big time.

wow thats some damage..i remember reading a story of a VC 10 that was caught in such hail…the whole radome section of the aircraft was knocked out, a fighter did an outside check before it landed safely.

Quite amazing that the aircraft can still fly in that condition.

I remember seeing the BMi A321 which encountered problems above Germany a few months back, but there seems to be much greater damaged to the easyJet aircraft.

Would hailstones cause damaged to the engine if they were sucked in?

Yeah I saw those pics earlier… this is the second aircraft in 2 months? Firstly the BMi 321, which is now back in service.

Cheers Steve.