- [Man] You take, you know, probably the worst turbulence
you've kind of experienced and multiple it by about 10,
and that's the potential that we're going into.
(light orchestral music)
- [Narrator] That's the voice of Justin Kibbey.
He's a pilot.
- [Justin] My job title says Hurricane Hunter pilot.
- [Narrator] Yeah, he flies planes through hurricanes.
It's all in the name of science.
He works for NOAA.
- [Justin] The National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration.
- [Narrator] These missions are for data gathering,
to track and study hurricane paths and movements.
But Justin Kibbey and I aren't talking about data.
We're talking about what it feels like
to fly an airplane through a hurricane.
(ominous orchestral music)
- [Justin] It starts to get cloudy.
And once you're in the storm,
you'll start to hear rain hitting the windscreen.
It can be very loud.
(rain falling and thunder rumbling)
It surrounds you, it surrounds the whole plane.
Probably the best way to describe it
is if you have ever lived in a house with a tin roof.
It's hard to hold a conversation inside.
- [Narrator] These are the conditions
Hurricane Hunters fly through
every time they go on a mission,
because the point of flying through a hurricane
is to fly through it and get to the eye.
And he was telling me about the first time he ever did that.
- [Justin] And that was 2010.
We were flying into Hurricane Earl.
- [Man] What's the latest information
we're getting about Earl, Chad?
- [Chad] 135 miles per hour and still getting stronger.
- [Justin] And then, I remember breaking out
into the eye of the storm.
Everything just kinda stopped.
Everything. The noise stopped, the lightning stopped.
It was pitch black out, you could see stars above you.
It was really beautiful, serene; it was quiet,
(soft piano music) and it was a holy shit moment.
What did we just do?
What just happened?
And a bolt of lightning lit up the entire outbound eye wall
where I could see it visually.
And all of a sudden, I was like,
"Oh man, that's gonna be scary." (laughing)
It was a rough ride on the way out,
but I'll never forget it.
It was probably one of the coolest that I've been on.