Narrow escape for passengers: Plane windscreen cracked by block of ice at 35,000 feet

The block of ice fell from another plane that was flying 1,000 feet above the jet while it was cruising at 35,000 feet and cracked up the two-inch-thick windscreen, which is built to withstand extreme forces.

In a scary incident, a British Airways aircraft carrying around 200 holiday travellers from London suffered a mid-air windscreen crack, causing panic at 35,000 ft. Luckily for passengers, the plane landed safely at San Jose without much problem. A lump of ice from a jet 1,000 feet above the British Airways' jet smashed into the plane at 35,000 feet that left its windscreen cracked, according to media reports.

The Boeing 777 aircraft cruising at 35,000 feet was making the journey from London Gatwick to San Jose in Costa Rica on Christmas Day when the freak accident took place. The ice block completely cracked up the two-inch-thick windscreen, which is built to withstand extreme force and is similar to bulletproof glass.

The incident has been described as a "one-in-a-million" chance and left some 200 passengers stranded over Christmas instead of being able to make it back to London. "The BA app was saying something vague about the flight being delayed to the next day. The flight time, however, only showed a four-hour delay. We had received no information via email or message so we hoped it was just a glitch. We dropped our car and continued to the airport, desperately hoping it wasn't true," Mitchell, a passenger said.

Despite the mid-air accident, all the passengers were safe but were stranded at an airport for several hours after their plane made an emergency landing. The flight was rescheduled 50 hours after the passengers' original scheduled time.

Following the incident, British Airways issued an apology to the passengers who had their Christmas Day plans ruined. "We will never fly an aircraft unless we feel it is completely safe to do so, and on this occasion, our engineers were unable to clear it to fly. Since then, our teams have been working behind the scenes to do all they can to ensure an aircraft is ready at the earliest opportunity to bring customers to London," the official said.

British Airways has offered a full refund to all the affected passengers, and will also pay the 520 pounds per person stipulated for long delays under air passengers' rights rules, the report said.

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