Austrian Airlines A320 vs. Hail

Here we are again in a familiar place. A commercial airliner damaged by hail while flying through severe weather that the "cockpit crew said the cell wasn’t visible on the weather radar."

Really? A storm that did this... is going to show up if the radar is on and properly used.

Why is it that pilots of airliners keep getting themselves into these situations? They are flying the latest generation of sophisticated aircraft with advanced airborne weather radar onboard. So what gives? Could it possibly be that the pilots were not using the radar properly? Surely not, right?

Guess again. In my 35 years of flying, I have found that many an airline pilot were not radar savvy, certainly not proficient in the finer details of how to tweak the best information out of the system. Case in point: there are far too many such encounters on record.

So what did these pilots fly through? Check out the images superimposing the flight path on current weather conditions.

So how do you avoid being caught in such a predicament? Become a radar expert. Find out how HERE.