A hailstorm cracked the windshield of an American Airlines jetliner headed to Phoenix and forced it to divert to El Paso, Texas, Sunday night, officials said.
Flight 1897 from San Antonio, Texas, to Phoenix, diverted “due to damage sustained by weather in flight,” the airline said in a statement but gave few other details other than the plane sustained damage to “its nose and windshield” from hail.
None of the 130 passengers and crew of five was injured and the plane was able to taxi normally to the gate, the statement said.
The Airbus A319 landed shortly after 8 p.m. local time and the aircraft was being evaluated by maintenance crews, the airline said. All passengers were later taken on another plane to their destination.
The is the latest in a series of high profile incident involving damaged airplane windows. Last month, the windshield of another Airbus A319 failed mid-flight nearly sucking the flight’s first officer out of the plane. The windshield failure also damaged the control panel housing the plane’s autopilot systems. None of the Sichuan Airlines flight’s 119 passengers suffered serious injuries.
In April, a window onboard Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 blew out after being damaged by debris from an explosive engine failure. The incident took the life of passenger Jennifer Riordan and forced the Boeing 737-700 to make an emergency landing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The National Transportation Safety Board is conducting a full investigation of the Southwest flight that is expected to take more than a year to complete.