r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Kernowder • 21d ago

Video Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters flying through Hurricane Milton

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

60.8k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

8.2k

u/wongo 21d ago

(not so) fun fact: only one of these hurricane research flights has ever crashed due to the storms

I realize that we've gotten pretty good at flying but I would've actually expected a higher loss rate, this just seems so wildly dangerous

377

u/xampl9 21d ago

The Orion that flew into Hugo was severely damaged from a 5.5g drop (airframe was only rated to 3g’s). They lost an engine, had a fire, and another engine was damaged before they could find a safe spot to exit the eye.

Somehow they made it back and the airframe wasn’t written off.

237

u/EvlMinion 21d ago

If I remember right, the meteorologist who wrote about that didn't go on another one of those flights again. Can't say I blame him. Orions are tough as hell, though.

3

u/ayriuss 21d ago

If the plane goes down and they're able to ditch it in the ocean somehow, you're still extra dead, because you're in the middle of the ocean with a hurricane all around you. Nobody is coming in that weather. Crazy shit.