Like toys: at an Italian airport, a powerful wind caused light aircraft to drift
The weather in Europe continues to throw up surprises, and this time, northern Italy was out of luck.
At Forlì Airport, a typical summer storm turned into a real test for aviation. A powerful hurricane wreaked havoc on the runway, tossing planes around like plastic toys.
The Emilia-Romagna region was hit by a so-called downburst—a powerful squall of descending air accompanied by tropical rain. At Luigi Ridolfi Airport, wind gusts reached a staggering 120 km/h (about 33 meters per second).
In the face of such force, light aircraft were completely helpless. The wind tore three light aircraft from their positions, turned them around, and literally rolled them across the wet asphalt. The squall caused one of them (a four-seat Diamond DA40) to spin 360 degrees around its own axis. The situation was made even more dramatic by the fact that the plane's propeller was running at the time. Several other aircraft parked on the ramp were simply flipped sideways and upside down.
The storm caught one of the damaged aircraft at the worst possible moment – right during its landing approach. Fortunately, the pilots showed remarkable restraint, and there were no injuries.
Besides the aircraft in flight, the storm also caused chaos on the ground: elements of the main maintenance hangar were torn off and the roof was partially damaged. Due to the unrest and debris flying along the runway, the airport was completely closed for an hour until fire crews arrived. Rescuers manually caught the rolling planes and secured them to concrete blocks.
