I found this article interesting and thought I'd share it...
"An Air Transat Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, registration C-FTNA performing flight TS-906 from Lyon (France) to Berlin Schoenefeld (Germany) with 197 passengers and 14 crew, was climbing through FL190 out of Lyon about 42nm north of Lyon at a speed of 300 KIAS, when the airplane encountered severe hail twice. The crew immediately turned right out of the hail and decided to return to Lyon, where the airplane landed safely. No injuries occured, the airplane sustained substantial damage and was written off.
The French BEA now (August 2010, 9 years later) released their final report in French concluding the probable cause of the accident was:
The passage of the aircraft through a very active area of cloud, the chromatic symbolism of which on the weather radar did not resemble the severity and transient nature of the phenomena. The crew chose to avoid the worst area of the thunderstorm as depicted and flew through an area, the color representation of which did not show activity."From:
http://avherald.com/h?article=42fca893&opt=0Below are some pics of Air Transat Lockheed L-1011-385-1-14 TriStar 150 C-FTNA (cn 193M-1019) taken after the incident:
#1 is nose-on view...damage to radome and windscreen plainly visible.
#2 is wing and engine detail. Damage is obvious.
#3 is Captains side of nose. Dents and windscreen damage obvious.
#4 is Copilots side of nose. Windscreen damage apparent here.