Sounds like the plane took a major beating during the recent center fix:
BECAUSE OF THE EXTREME TURBULENCE AND GROUPEL [sic] THAT THE AIRCRAFT EXPERIENCED...THE MISSION IS BEING ABORTED AND THE AIRCRAFT IS RETURNING TO ST. CROIX.
Graupel are small frozen water droplets, like small hail stones. Flying through 160 knot-driven small hail stones would be a pretty stressful experience, for both the plane and for the people on board.
Edited by Thunderbird12 (Sun Sep 02 2007 08:14 PM)