A Spirit Airlines flight bound to Los Angeles had to make an emergency return back to it’s departure field of Nashville following a hailstorm causing damage to the aircraft.
Information has been released pertinent to the incident at hand, which we will get into.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
Spirit Airlines Flight NK496 Nashville-Los Angeles…
Spirit Airlines flight NK496, which suffered damage from the hailstorm, is a routine scheduled flight between Nashville and Los Angeles.
Furthermore, the aircraft involved in the incident was understood to be N651NK.
As per data from Planespotters, N651NK is a 6.7 year old Airbus A320ceo.
It was delivered to the airline back in December 2017.
Moreover, of the A320ceo variant, Spirit Airlines has 64 of them in their fleet.
Within that 64, all of them are in active service, with an average fleet age of 10.0 years.
As well as the A320ceo, the airline has the following other aircraft in their mainline fleet:
- 8 Airbus A319s.
- 91 Airbus A320neos.
- 51 Airbus A321 Family aircraft.
Spirit Airlines flight NK496, which suffered damage from the hailstorm, departed Nashville at 1406 local time on August 30.
The flight initially climbed out towards Los Angeles.
As per The Aviation Herald, it is understood the crew stopped the climb at 15,000 feet.
This was due to the hailstorm causing a windshield in the cockpit to crack.
From there, the aircraft entered a series of holds to complete certain checklists and to burn fuel, before being able to make the approach back into Nashville.
After over two hours in the air, Spirit Airlines flight NK496, which suffered damage from the Hailstorm, landed safely without further incident.
Aircraft Grounded For Four Days…
Following the incident involving Spirit Airlines flight NK496 with the hailstorm causing aircraft damage, N651NK was taken out of commercial service for four days.
This was to assess the aircraft for damage, as well as to replace the windshield.
On September 3rd, the aircraft was sent from Nashville to Dallas Fort-Worth, where it has been since at the time of publication (Which was September 4th, 2024 – Information subject to change.
As soon as we have more information pertinent to this incident, then we will update you accordingly on the AviationSource website.
For now, this remains a developing story.
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