Tossed and battered by violent wind and severe turbulence, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hurricane Hunters have spent the past week diving into the eye of Melissa -- a storm of historic ferocity -- to gather life-saving data. They have done it around the clock, 24/7, because their mission is considered essential to public safety.
But this time, with the government shut down, they have done it all without pay.
The Hurricane Hunters are a standard feature of US storm response. Information gathered by the planes' specialized equipment, which includes a tail-mounted doppler radar that takes a virtual CT scan of the storm, are crucial for issuing accurate forecasts and gauging storm strength in real-time.
The data, including the radar information, is fed straight into the computer models that forecasters use to predict a hurricane's path and intensity.
But as long-lived Hurricane Melissa rumbled on through the week, the people operating the flights have been under increasing financial stress.
The crews of the agency's decades-old WP-3D aircraft have now missed two paychecks due to the shutdown, according to a NOAA employee with knowledge of the hurricane hunter operations, who spoke with CNN on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Crews are asked "To be fully mentally present, especially in this environment, and it's hard to do that when you know you can't potentially make ends meet," the NOAA staff member said. "You're dipping into savings to pay off your mortgage, you know, week to week or month to month."
The flights through the once Category 5 storm have been particularly hairy, with one of the NOAA aircraft having to return to its base for a safety inspection after exceeding its g-force limits from the turbulence.
Videos during that flight show equipment falling from the ceiling of the plane, with roughly 20 crew members cursing and laughing as they are thrown against their safety harnesses.
Following an inspection by ground crews, who are also working without pay, that same aircraft flew out later the same day on another mission into the storm, the NOAA staff member said.
The NOAA crews have met all the requests that the National Hurricane Center has made of them, the employee said. The Center assigns them to specific flight routes and schedules where scientists think in-situ data would improve the forecasts as much as possible.
"I think it's just a notable thing that we have these crews going around the clock supporting the important mission that it is," despite enduring increasing financial hardship, they said.
They said the NOAA flights have been fully staffed with about 20 crew members per flight.
The NOAA flights continued as the storm plowed into Jamaica, doing immense damage to the island nation and killing at least 19 people.
They have kept flying to support America's international partners, with flights on Thursday aimed at making sure Bermuda residents get accurate warnings of the storm's intensity and path.
NOAA spokesperson Kim Doster acknowledged the crews' hard work and their financial stress. "NOAA looks forward to a swift end to the crippling federal government shutdown which is forcing essential workers and service members like our brave Hurricane Hunter pilots to go unpaid as they perform their mission-critical duties that protect the lives of Americans every day," she told CNN.
The Air Force Reserve also flies into hurricanes and has flown numerous missions into Melissa, but those planes are not bristling with the same specialized equipment that the older NOAA aircraft are. They fly a more straightforward reconnaissance mission, keeping tabs of the storm's intensity and movement, whereas the NOAA flights are aimed more at hurricane research and enabling forecasting improvements.
Remarkably, one of the Air Force flights also had to turn around after getting beaten up by severe turbulence flying through Melissa. CNN reached out to the Air Force's Hurricane Hunter squadron to inquire about their pay status but has not heard back.
It's unusual for two flights to have to turn back within the same storm and indicates the hurricane's power during its approach to southwestern Jamaica. Melissa crossed the Jamaican coast tied for the strongest-ever landfalling Atlantic hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 185 mph.
Andy Hazelton, a hurricane researcher who works with NOAA's hurricane research division at the University of Miami, told CNN earlier this week that the NOAA flight that had to turn around due to turbulence was the roughest ride in a hurricane that he has had since he began such work seven years ago.
"You hit a big enough updraft and downdraft you have to make sure the plane is ok," Hazelton, who is being paid during the shutdown via the university, said. "These crews are doing this all while not getting paid, so they deserve all the credit."