Austrian Airlines plane suffers severe damage in hailstorm

Images shared online showed heavy damage to the exterior of the Airbus A320 aircraft, with the front nose cone almost entirely blown away.

Other photos appeared showed dense white cracks across the front windscreen.

Emmeley Oakley, a passenger on the flight, told ABC News that the plane was on its final approach into Vienna when it was suddenly rocked by the storm.

“I think we were about 20 minutes from landing when we got into a cloud of hail and thunderstorm, and the turbulence started,” she told the broadcaster.

She said passengers could “feel the hail” as it smashed into the plane, adding that the flight became “super rocky for a minute”. Several people screamed throughout the incident, Ms Oakley said. She praised the cabin crew – who she said “did a really good job calming those people down”.

Another passenger, identified only as Manuel H, told the Kronen-Zeitung newspaper: “I only realised afterwards that it was parts of the nose cone that I saw flying past.”

An Austrian Airlines spokesperson told the BBC that a technical team had been “tasked with assessing the specific damage to the aircraft”.

“As of now, the hail has damaged the two front cockpit windows, the aircraft nose (radome), and some coverings,” the spokesperson said.