This reminds me a bit of the 747 crew in the early 90s flying over the Pacific. They started noticing St Elmos Fire all over the nose and windscreen of the aircraft. Then the aircraft began losing one engine at a time. Then the visibility on the windscreen went to zero. Then they lost all their engines. As they were gliding to a water landing, they were able to relight all the engines. They made it to their destination (The Phillipines or someplace like that). The aircraft appeared to have been sandblasted. I think they used the side windows to land. There was zero visiblity out of the front windscreens. Only then were they told that Mt. Pinatubo had erupted and they had been flying in increasing dense volcanic ash the farther west they flew.
I watched the Dateline NBC or 60 minutes story of the flight crew. It was fascinating.
