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[TacticalHotdog]

A pilot carried out a heart-stopping emergency landing during which he couldn't see – after giant hailstones shattered the windscreen of his severely damaged jet.

Captain Alexander Akopov picked up the Ukrainian Order For Courage in his home country after landing the Airbus A320 at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport on Thursday.

His skills saved the lives of the 121 passengers and six crew members on board, leaving him and his crew members celebrating as if it was a “second birthday”.

A heavy storm over Turkey saw hailstones the size of eggs rain down, which left a gash in Captain Akopov’s plane and disabled the plane's autopilot.

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," he told local media.

“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.”

Hailstones cracked the cockpit window just 10 minutes after take-off on a Turkish airline AtlasGlobal flight to Ercan in northern Cyprus.

He was given permission to attempt to land at Ataturk airport, despite it being closed to other flights because of the bad weather.

https://www.independent.co.uk/trave...xander-akopov-atlasglobal-erkan-a7868901.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxlA0nKFciQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSFHSRcE_QI
Video of hail from the same day: https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/891007472915369984
Some hailstones were reported to be up to 9cm in diameter

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

Holy fucking shit, those pics.

 

[SoundofSilence]

Holy shit... that photo is insane.

 

[SilentRob]

1. Holy fucking shit
2. Hoooooly fucking shit that Twitter Video. That looks like straight out of some meteor shower apocalypse movie.

 

[AlexFlame116]

Holy crap! Huge job well done to the pilot!

 

[Conciliator]

It is normal. This is our professional reliability.

wow, what a badass answer.

 

[MCN]

Holy mother of Christ!

 

[AstroNut325]

Balls of adamantium!

 

[Raxus]

Big props to those pilots and modern engineering.

Nightmare fuel right there.

 

[Laiza]

This is why these planes are fitted with so many instruments.

Either way, goddamn, that is some seriously professional work right there.

 

[PillarEN]

So frank in his answer. Like "Did shit get done? Yes it got done and now I'm going to have a beer. Big deal."

 

[SoundofSilence]

That Twitter video is absolutely incredible...

 

[TeamLeftMatch]

His skills saved the lives of the 121 passengers and six crew members on board, leaving him and his crew members celebrating as if it was a “second birthday”.

That's one weird way to say they celebrated for their survival.

Also holy shit the front of that plane, looks like something out of a disaster movie. Good thing everyone made it out ok.

 

[MKIL65]

I hope every passenger clapped and cheered.

 

[Permanently A]

"It is normal. This is our professional reliability." is up there with "I don't want trouble"

 

[The Elite]

That's not just hail.

Someone cast Meteor.

 

[Mr. Giggles]

"Just doing my job"

Best and most badass answer

 

[Coxy100]

I'm surprised the plane could fly in the first place - the pilot must have such giant balls!

Well done to him

 

[Kinyou]

Amazing that the windows didn't break

Edit: woah, in the video it looks really risky for a second there

 

[AndyD]

Looked like he came in fast and was banking. Was the weather really bad at landing?

Nevertheless, very impressive and congratulations to him on a job well done.

 

[F34R]

ILS = life saving. Great pilot.

Co-pilot: "OMG, we'll never land safely"
Pilot: "Hold my beer"

 

[The Elite]

Will he get a movie?

 

[Tawpgun]

Jesus, I thought the hail cracked the windows which injured his eyes. Not that the cracked windshield made it impossible to see blind.

Still impressive.

 

[djplaeskool]

Holy shit.
Hats off to the pilot. That must've been intense.

 

[crisdecuba]

That's one weird way to say they celebrated for their survival.

Also holy shit the front of that plane, looks like something out of a disaster movie. Good thing everyone made it out ok.

It's like they got a "second chance at life" is how I'm taking it.

 

[MCN]

Will he get a movie?

Nobody would believe it.

 

[crisdecuba]

Nobody would believe it.

They just need to insert some stuff about him being drunk at the time, followed by some BS investigation as to whether he made the right decision, etc. (I'm looking at you, Sully.)

 

[Plum]

After this and the terrorist plot stopped in London it seems that the world's conspiring against me to make me as terrified as possible before getting on a plane tomorrow. That's fucking horrific, glad everyone got out OK.

 

[E92 M3]

guystandingupandcleaningfacewithnapkin.gif

 

[GeoNeo]

Holy fuck that landing.

Legit saved the lives of all those people on board. Fuck me. :O

 

[MikeHattsu]

Not only is the windscreen shattered, but the radome is damaged and possibly a lot of the radar equipment in it as well, so they'd really be flying blind .

 

[The Elite]

After this and the terrorist plot stopped in London it seems that the world's conspiring against me to make me as terrified as possible before getting on a plane tomorrow. That's fucking horrific, glad everyone got out OK.

I get freaked out by landings. The whole thing just seems insane and it happens thousands of times a day with complete success.

 

[norm9]

Good for the pilot. I'm a big fan of air disaster documentaries, and I'm glad he won't end up a statistic.

 

[SlimySnake]

Auto-Pilot: It's not possible!
Pilot: It's professional!
Co-Pilot: What are you doing?
Pilot: Landing.
Auto-Pilot: I will just put on the Interstellar soundtrack.

 

[MMarston]

 

[backflip10019]

I am posting from a plane right now and that is terrifying.

 

[KHarvey16]

Nobody would believe it.

Nah, planes and airports are built for it and pilots are trained for it. It's impressive whenever it's done but it does happen here and there.

 

[poppedcollar69]

do they usually have hail like that in istanbul???? wikipedia says the average august high temp is like 80 degrees!

 

[Snkfanatic]

Amazing pilots and that quote lol....so good.

 

[MikeHattsu]

After this and the terrorist plot stopped in London it seems that the world's conspiring against me to make me as terrified as possible before getting on a plane tomorrow. That's fucking horrific, glad everyone got out OK.

Would it help to tell you that similar incidents with hail has happened lots of times before? ;P

http://io9.gizmodo.com/an-airbus-a330-recently-flew-into-a-hailstorm-and-th-1634051842
http://jalopnik.com/hail-damaged-airbus-takes-a-pounding-1687689061
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/08/us/delta-emergency-landing-hail/index.html
http://www.airlive.net/emergency-delta-airbus-a320-windshield-and-radome-damaged-by-hail/

 

[Log4Girlz]

Dude... the engines are indestructible

 

[The Last Wizard]

That's insane they were able to do that. Man hail is so damn fascinating, I'd love to see some again but it's scary to think someone could get seriously injured or more.

 

[DrROBschiz]

Good for the pilot. I'm a big fan of air disaster documentaries, and I'm glad he won't end up a statistic.

Dude

Mayday/ACI is my jam! Aviation is fucking fascinating though i dont revel on the tragic stories but marvel at how the pieces of the puzzle fit and how we learned from them

Looking forward to this one! You know this is going on the documentary list

 

[zer0das]

That plane looks like someone broke its glasses and gave it a bloody nose. Impressive piloting.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

Great job! All credit to the pilots and none to any gods. This was all them.

 

[maabus1999]

Looks like he did a side window landing. Good on him for keeping cool.

 

[smisk]

Why didn't they just kick out the windshield?

 

[Wyndstryker]

Those pics are insane.

 

[Hyun Sai]

Impressive. They are lucky it was a 30 years + veteran though.

I hope the new generation of pilots are trained to do this if the autopilot (and much else) is damaged.

 

[KHarvey16]

Why didn't they just kick out the windshield?

Probably to avoid being killed by balls of ice.