Hero Delta pilots make a BLIND emergency landing after baseball-sized hail storm cracked their windshield and damaged nose
Flight 1889 from Boston, Massachusetts, to Salt Lake City, Utah, made emergency landing in Denver at 9pm
The hail in eastern Colorado damaged nose of the Airbus 320 and the aircraft's GPS navigation system
Pilots made landing with limited visibility because of major cracks in the windshield
One passenger was taken to hospital with minor injuries while the others were flown to Utah on replacement plane
Said they did not realize how bad the damage was until they landed and saw the front of plane
Some children so scared by the incident that their families rented cars and drove eight hours from Colorado to Utah
By Christopher Brennan For Dailymail.com
Published: 12:58 EST, 8 August 2015 | Updated: 16:39 EST, 8 August 2015
Pilots of a Delta Airlines flight 1889 had to make an emergency landing - without being able to see out of the windshield - after baseball-sized hailstones wrecked the front of the plane.
The hail also destroyed the GPS navigation system at the front of the aircraft, which was flying from Boston to Salt Lake City on Friday night.
The pilots managed to land in Denver - where the passengers could see the extent of the damage to the Airbus 320's cone.
Many said they were lucky to be alive after relatively normal turbulence became a 'roller coaster' up in the air.
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Wrecked: The Airbus 320's windshield and cone were severely damaged during a hail storm over eastern Colorado. The plane is pictured at Denver International Airport, where it made an emergency landing
'So that is my airplane. Glad to be alive,' Instagram user Beau Sorenson said, posting a picture of the plane.
The flight had been delayed in Boston 'and the pilot warned us of a little chop as he was routed between 2 storms. The next thing we know, we are bouncing around in some very big turbulence,' he told The Weather Channel.
'We heard loud banging sounds and saw lightning arcing on the right wing. We banked abruptly and descended sharply, by then kids were crying and people were upset.'
Passenger Rob Wessman told ABC that 'people were kind of holding hands and others were crying'.
It is not known how many people were on the plane, but Airbus 320s can hold up to 180.
Hail was reportedly entering the plane's engines and exiting out the other side like a snow-cone machine.
Passenger Robin Jones told Fox 13 she was thinking: 'Have I told everybody that I love that I love them?'
The pilots decided to make the emergency landing when the windshield cracked.
They had to use the plane's automatic guiding system because they had limited visibility. But they were able to successfully land the plane at 8.40pm with help from the control tower.
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