Aircraft's Greatest Risk Posed by Weather
There are many factors a pilot must consider to safely guide their aircraft. Weather is natural and one of the more prominent factors that can greatly impact the aircraft aside from the pilot and aircraft itself. Weather itself also has multiple factors that can affect an aircraft, but the most prevalent hazard presented by weather are thunderstorms. Thunderstorms can encompass multiple other naturally occurring weather hazards and introduce some unique to itself. Thunderstorms can have rain, hail, tornadoes, turbulence, variable winds/microbursts, and lightning (U.S. DoT & FAA, 2013). As a whole, thunderstorms can also affect ground operations with preventing maintenance or other personnel from tending to aircraft not sheltered and can prevent aircraft from taking off. Two issues that could also result from thunderstorms and affect the pilots decisions while flying are low visibility and the effect they have on altimeters (U.S. DoT & FAA, 2013). (Image was taken from a video.