Block of ice shatters windscreen of British Airways plane at 35,000 ft, passengers escape unharmed

A British Airways plane carrying round 200 vacation travellers from London survived a mid-air scare after a lump of ice from a jet 1,000 ft above it smashed into the aircraft at 35,000 ft that left its windscreen cracked, in line with media stories.

The Boeing 777 plane cruising at 35,000 ft was making the journey from London Gatwick to San Jose in Costa Rica on Christmas Day when the freak accident came about.The block of ice fell from one other aircraft that was flying 1,000 ft above the jet whereas it was cruising at 35,000 ft. It fully cracked up the two-inch-thick windscreen, which is constructed to face up to excessive pressure and is much like bulletproof glass.The plane landed safely at San Jose.The incident has been described as a ‘one-in-a-million’ likelihood and left some 200 passengers stranded over Christmas as an alternative of with the ability to make it again to London.“My husband is part-Icelandic and his family who live in Edinburgh celebrate Christmas on 24 December. We were desperately trying to find a connecting flight at this point that would get us there in time to not miss his family Christmas,” Jo Mitchell instructed The Independent newspaper.Mitchell and Geir Olafsson had been on honeymoon in Costa Rica, and set off from their Pacific coast resort anticipating to return through Gatwick to Edinburgh in time for a household Christmas.”The BA app was saying one thing obscure concerning the flight being delayed to the following day. The flight time, nevertheless, solely confirmed a four-hour delay. We had obtained no data through e mail or message so we hoped it was only a glitch. We dropped our automotive and continued to the airport, desperately hoping it wasn’t true,” Mitchell mentioned.Despite the mid-air accident, all of the passengers have been secure however have been stranded at an airport for a number of hours after their aircraft made an emergency touchdown.The flight was rescheduled 50 hours after the passengers’ unique scheduled time.“We were told when it was our turn to check-in by the San Jose desk staff that the plane had a broken windshield and it would be too dangerous to fly it back. At this point we were devastated realising we would miss Christmas with both of our families,” Mitchell mentioned.Following the incident, British Airways issued an apology to the passengers who had their Christmas Day plans ruined.“We will never fly an aircraft unless we feel it is completely safe to do so, and on this occasion, our engineers were unable to clear it to fly. Since then, our teams have been working behind the scenes to do all they can to ensure an aircraft is ready at the earliest opportunity to bring customers to London,” the official mentioned.“We appreciate the patience and the understanding of our customers and our engineers and crew colleagues who have also done all they can to assist,” the report quoted the official as saying.British Airways has provided a full refund to all of the affected passengers, and also will pay the 520 kilos per individual stipulated for lengthy delays underneath air passengers’ rights guidelines, the report mentioned.Read | IAF transport plane catches fireplace upon touchdown at Delhi airport, crew escapes unharmedRead | Air ambulance makes emergency stomach touchdown at Mumbai airport after malfunction