American Airlines plane damaged by bad weather over Texas

An American Airlines plane made an emergency landing after hail damaged the windshield and caused some passengers to throw up.

“It started hailing and you could just hear it on the plane. It was so scary, like people started screaming,” said Massiel Tinoco, a flight passenger.

One of the pilots said they could barely see through the windshield. On audio recordings, you can hear the pilot asking the airport crew if they can see any other damage on the plane besides the windshield.

“You have damage through your nose-cone,” responded airport crew.

The airline says no injuries were reported after the Sunday night flight from San Antonio, Texas, to Phoenix ran into bad weather over New Mexico and turned south to land in El Paso, Texas. There were 130 passengers and five crew members on board. Another plane finished the trip to Phoenix a few hours later.

An airline spokesman said Monday that the plane was awaiting repairs for damage to the nose, windshield panels and a cockpit side window. He said the engines, including the fan blades, were not damaged.

Passenger Jesus Esparza told KENS-TV in San Antonio he saw lightning and hail and the plane dropped “like a rollercoaster.” He gave a sickness bag to another passenger who had already used one.

ABC-7 asked local flight instructor, Tom Barker, if the plane would have been able to fly over the storm instead of having to divert the plane? He said thunderstorms can reach up to 60-thousand feet in the air and planes are only allowed to fly up to 40-thousand feet, so the pilot did exactly what he should have done in this situation.