(CNN) — An aerospace engineer who flew into Hurricane Ian in the early morning hours Wednesday said the flight was the worst of his career.
“We’re alright, we’re alright,” says one voice. “The ‘we’re alright’ was for me,” Underwood posted, also noting that the video was “edited for language.”
CNN has reached out to NOAA and Underwood for more details about the Wednesday flight.
Underwood said on Twitter that he’s been flying in storms for the past six years.
“When I say this was the roughest flight of my career so far, I mean it. I have never seen the bunks come out like that. There was coffee everywhere. I have never felt such lateral motion,” Underwood posted.
“There is potential it opens the door for new and interesting data sets. We’re looking to see how it performs,” Underwood posted in advance of the Wednesday flight.
The system “worked great,” he tweeted later.
The cabin of Kermit, a Lockheed WP-3D Orion “Hurricane Hunter,” was littered with items displaced during the Wednesday morning flight.
Nick Underwood/NOAA
Underwood underlined that hurricane hunting flights have a mission.
“Want to stress we don’t this for fun. It’s a public service. We go up there to gather data on the storm that can keep folks on the ground safe,” he wrote.
“Those forecast models? A lot of the data comes from what we do. I’m a very small part of a large team. Incredible teammates.”
But it’s not all stone-cold serious when the crew is under pressure. The pilot always listens to music, Underwood posted. This time it was rapper Meek Mill of Dream Chasers Records.
Underwood had a message for Mill from the pilot.
“@MeekMill, he has asked me to relay, ‘From one Dream Chaser to another.’ “
Top image: Nick Underwood, an aerospace engineer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, shared photos on Twitter from the eye of Hurricane Ian on Wednesday, September 28, 2022. (Nick Underwood/NOAA/Twitter)
