Strong storm winds have caused a large hangar to collapse at William P Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas. The National Weather Service confirmed that the incident was caused by a microburst – an intense downdraft produced by a storm.
The hangar is owned by Jet Aviation and leased to charter provider Jet Linx. Eight planes were damaged in the collapse – four of them inside the hangar at the time – although there were no reported injuries.
The runway was covered in debris following the collapse, but was soon cleared to allow commercial flights to land and take off as scheduled. Repairing the damage is expected to cost millions of dollars, with debris also making a hole in a second airport structure nearby.
Bill Begley, public information officer for Hobby Airport, said, “There’s only so much you can prepare for. We lease this area out to companies and they build the facilities so we’re trying to support them and trying to recover what’s happening here. Mother Nature can be pretty strong.”
