Pilot lands “blind” after hailstorm pelting

Pilot lands “blind” after hailstorm pelting

Flying a plane is hard, right? Well how about flying with a cracked and shattered windscreen, trying to dodge gnarly, vicious bits of hail?

Look, it’s not easy. And one pilot has shown that as he battled the elements to safely land a passenger plane in Istanbul.

Ukrainian captain, Alexander Akopov, successfully landed his plane carrying 127 passengers, per news.com.auafter encountering a hailstorm so bad it practically shaved the nose of the plane clean off!

Akopov successfully guided the Airbus A320 down to the make an emergency landing at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport, flying “blind” due to the hailstones the size of “chicken eggs” shattering the cockpit windows and obstructing any view of the runway.

The Turkey-based airline, Atlasglobal flight, was headed to the northern Cyprus centre of Erkan, per news.com.au, when it had to land about 10 minutes into the trip.

The plane was at about 1300-metre altitutde, with the storm somehow also breaking the plane’s autopilot, because you know, flying blind isn’t bad enough.

Check out Akopov’s landing here:

But the best part of the story, aside from the safe landing of the plane, of course, was the attitude Akopov brought to his heroic actions.

Despite even the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko calling Akopov to personally congratulate him on his bravery and award him the Ukrainian Order of Courage, Akopov just said he was doing his job, no more, no less.

Per news, he said, “I have been flying for 30 years.

“Well, did you see the plane landing? Was it okay? The passengers are alive. It is normal. This is our professional reliability.

“Our locator did not show this weather disaster, this is why it happened. It was hard, but the main thing is that people are alive.”

Lead image: Facebook

Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

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