Photo via Twitter/airlivenet
An American Airlines flight bound for JFK Airport in New York from Milan was forced to land at London Heathrow Saturday after suffering a windshield crack, the New York Daily News reported.
Flight 199, a Boeing 767-300 with 183 passengers on board, took off from the northern Italian city at 10 a.m. local time, but made an emergency landing in the U.K. just an hour later due to the damage, an airline spokesperson told the Daily News. The fliers were subsequently put on different flights to New York City, while the plane was held at Heathrow and assessed, spokesperson added. No injuries were reported.
A man claiming to be a crewmember provided a photo of the cracked windshield for Airlive.net's Twitter account, and reported in a now-deleted tweet that it was a "textbook emergency landing."
In an update, Airlive.net said the jet flew into a hailstorm that "damaged the windscreen and turbines."
A similar incident happened in August, when a Delta aircraft encountered midair hail that damaged the jet's metal nose and pounded the front windows so severely that the pilots could not see through them.
Citing Federal Aviation Administration statistics, the Telegraph said 12 windshield-cracking incidents have been reported since 1982 on commercial airliners. One of the scariest - mentioned by the British media outlet, occurred in 1990, when a pilot was almost sucked out of the plane due to the failure of an entire window pane.
For the latest travel news, updates and deals, subscribe to the daily TravelPulse newsletter.
Topics From This Article to Explore
