HOUSTON — As Helene was coming ashore on Thursday night, a Hurricane Hunter flight was able to escape the eye of the storm.
Their wild ride began in Houston.
The NOAA P-3 Orion "Kermit" is based in Florida, which was right in the path of the storm.
In preparation, they moved Kermit to Ellington Field in Houston.
They took off from Ellington and started their journey into the Category 4 hurricane.
The Hurricane Hunters shared video of the bumpy ride.
It's a cockpit view of the crew as they flew through the eyewall of the storm late Thursday night.
The video showed one of four passes through the eye as they gathered crucial data.
The flight track of Kermit shows they spent a lot of time in the storm, doing more than a dozen turns inside the eye.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the crew spent extra time in the eye to release an uncrewed aircraft for research purposes.
The flight looked rough but it ended well. Kermit and its crew landed back in Houston before returning to its home base in Florida on Friday morning.