(Original story about damaged Delta 747, Delta a320, and American 787 below update)

August 24th 5:27 CDT Update:

N805AN, the American 787 mentioned in this post, is back flying fully fixed after it was damaged by hail over Beijing 4 weeks ago. The Dreamliner was undergoing repairs at the American hub in Dallas. The repairs were made in close cooperation with Boeing. This morning it operated flight AA2332 to Chicago (ORD) and less than an hour ago took of for Tokyo (NRT) on AA153.

American Airlines (@AmericanAir) Posted:

Oh hail, I’m not afraid to say it: I’ve had a little work done. http://t.co/W8eL5YsHZJ pic.twitter.com/wDshTnyctz

— American Airlines (@AmericanAir) August 24, 2015

Original Post (August 9th):

Recently, there have been a large magnitude of cases of aircraft being damaged by hail. The three major stories were the Delta 747, American Airlines 787, and a Delta a320. Below are summaries of what happened with the aircraft and some photos as well.

Delta 747:

In late June, A Delta 747-400, tail number N664US, was flying from Detroit to Seoul, South Korea. Flight 159 was less than 3 hours from its destination when it entered a storm above China. It was pounded with hail and passengers said many things flew out of the overhead bins. It was a very scary experience for the people on board. When the plane landed, massive damage was visible, mostly to the nose cone where the GPS is located. Weeks later, the plane was flown out to the desert  where it will most likely be scraped.

Photo Credit: Brian Walker

Photo Credit: Brian Walker

American Airlines 787 Dreamliner:

On July 27, flight AA88 took of from Beijing headed for Dallas. Shortly after takeoff, the plane flew into a storm and was damaged by hail. The Boeing 787 with 222 passengers and crew turned around and landed back in Beijing without incident. Just like in the case above, the nose cone was severely damaged. It later was flown back to the American base in Dallas where it will have to be repaired with the help of Boeing.

Photo Credit: Christine Negroni

Photo Credit: Christine Negroni

Delta a320:

Delta flight 1889 from Boston to Salt Lake City was trying to fly between two storm systems over the Colorado when it flew was hit with the hail storm. Passengers reported massive turbulence and lots of screaming. The pilots managed to land the jetliner in Denver at 9pm with limited visibility. When on the ground, the passengers saw the extent of the damage. Not only was the nose cone damaged, but the windshield had major cracks. Passengers were flow to Utah on a replacement plane but some families took an 8 hour drive instead because of the frightening events that happened in the air.

Photo Credit: Jeff Johnson

Photo Credit: Jeff Johnson