Pilot who flew straight into the eye of Hurricane Irma reveals why he did it

Hurricane Irma has caused widespread destruction across the Caribbean,

The death of a child has been reported on Barbuda, where Prime Minister Gaston Browne has said that 95 per cent of the buildings had been damaged by the category five hurricane.

He told the BBC:

It's absolute devastation.

The island is literally under water. In fact, I'm of the view that, as it stands now, Barbuda is barely habitable.

He said 50 per cent of the population were now homeless and that it would cost $100m to rebuild the island.

Similar damage was reported in Sint Maarten, where the Dutch defence ministry said:

The picture is of many uprooted trees, houses without roofs and pleasure boats on land.

Nick Underwood is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) engineer.

His job is to deploy 'dropsondes' into hurricanes, which monitor the movement of the storm and help predict it.

As a result, he flies into some pretty terrifying situations regularly.

He filmed some recent footage of Irma and tweeted it:

People on Twitter were impressed:

Nick told UniLad:

You've just gone through some of the roughest weather on the planet in the eyewall, and then everything is just calm and beautiful.

Going through the eyewall is like being on the longest wooden roller coaster of your life.

There's certainly some bumps and sounds that will widen your eyes and have you pull your seatbelt a little tighter, but I was never scared. We review and drill emergency procedures constantly, and the people taking care of the airplane and flying it are the best out there.

HT UniLad

More: This man works at the National Hurricane Centre and this is what he has to say about Irma