AUA flight through storms as a case for the public prosecutor

It was a tense time for 173 passengers and four flight attendants when an Austrian Airlines plane flew through a hailstorm on June 9. AUA flight OS434 was on its return flight from Palma de Mallorca to Vienna when the plane got into an emergency situation.

“We went down abruptly, we were really hit for a few seconds and there was a loud bang, and then I saw through the window how pieces of plastic flew past,” Manuel Hofer from Sonnberg im Mühlkreis described the incident to the OÖNachrichten. The Airbus was badly damaged: the cockpit windows were shattered. The wings and nose fairing were also badly damaged by hail.

Accusations against the pilots

In the days following the accident, there were increasing reports of mishaps that caused the plane to get caught in the storm. According to a report in the “Kurier”, the co-pilot forgot to correctly align the antenna of the weather radar during the landing approach. The plane flew blindly into the storm in the Hartberg area. The thunderstorm cell was “not visible to the cockpit crew on the weather radar, according to their statement,” the AUA press office said in response to a query. It also said: “The weather radar on board is primarily used to fly around or over thunderstorms.”

Another accusation: the captain of the plane was not in the cockpit when the Airbus flew through the storm. He is said to have gone to the toilet. Actually, both the pilot and co-pilot should be in their seats during the landing approach. AUA has been tight-lipped on the matter, saying it does not want to comment on ongoing investigations.

Both the Austrian Airlines and the Federal Safety Investigation Board (SUB) have launched an investigation into the incident. The Austrian Airlines stressed that both the captain of the aircraft and his co-pilot were “very experienced in their roles in terms of total flight hours and flight hours on the A320 aircraft”. The crew is now back on duty. They were routinely released from duty for seven days after the incident.

In addition to the investigations already underway, the public prosecutor’s office will now also be looking into the hailstorm. The Viennese lawyer Wolfgang List has sent a statement of facts to the investigative authorities in Korneuburg. In his complaint, List accuses unknown perpetrators of “negligent endangerment of the public”. The plane was flown into the storm, although the weather forecasts from Austro-Control had specifically warned of a thunderstorm cell in the Hartberg area. When the plane entered the thunderstorm cell, the passengers were “presumably placed in an acute life-threatening situation”, according to the statement of facts. However, flying around the danger zone would have been “easily possible”.