Plane flies through eye of Hurricane Patricia

Passengers on a plane have filmed the moment they flew straight into the eye of Hurricane Patricia.

The Category 5 storm has been described as the strongest ever to hit the Western hemisphere, with winds of up to 235mph recorded.

See also: Hailstorm smashes plane's cockpit window and nose cone

See also: Singapore Airlines plane drops 13,000ft after engines fail in huge storm

And while people on the coast of Mexico were evacuating, one plane carrying National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees headed straight for the eye of the storm.

The agency's Lockheed WP-3D Orion "hurricane hunter" flies right through the rain and clouds in video shot Thursday by flight engineer Joseph Klippel, reports NBC Los Angeles.

The plane is equipped to withstand adverse conditions and sustain large amounts of damage while taking atmospheric measurements.

Joseph Klippel described the experience on Facebook, writing: "This most definitely is the most powerful storm ever in the western hemisphere.

"We were thumped so hard that our flight director's keyboard flew off his station and all of his data was dumped."

The hurricane made landfall on Friday but it weakened as it did so.

According to the Independent, it hit a sparsely-populated stretch of Mexico's Pacific coast, but there were no reports of fatalities.

There were, however, scenes of toppled trees and mudslides, with cars and buses being swept away by floodwater.

It has now weakened to a Category 2 hurricane, and is expected to dissipate to a tropical storm later on Saturday.