An A320 flight crew suffered a cracked windshield during arrival sequencing.
Synopsis
An A320 flight crew suffered a cracked windshield during arrival sequencing.
Narrative
Leaving holding fix on radar vectors to join [the] arrival; First Officer saw crack develop in his forward windshield. The crack was not of the usual variety in that it did not spider web. This caused concern regarding structural integrity. We were in descent from FL250 to FL210 at the time of the incident. I advised ATC that we would be slowing and needing lower altitude due to the crack we had in the windshield. I also sent a quick ACARS message to Dispatch. The Dispatcher declared us an emergency aircraft and notified ATC accordingly.[Flight Management] guidance was to reduce differential pressure to 5 PSI or below. When I pulled up pressure page we were at 5.8 decreasing; so we attained the needed differential pressure quickly. I briefed the Purser on our situation stressing we were not in immediate danger and for the crew to prepare for landing with touch down in approximately 20 minutes. I then briefed our passengers on the situation and that they may notice the fire trucks following us after landing. We continued with SOP descent approach and landing. After securing aircraft at gate we made Maintenance write up and were then met by Flight Management. We went to conference room and conferred with Flight Operations Duty Manager and ZZZ Flight Management. We decided that it would be best if we discontinued our ID and return home.
Second reporter narrative
I had my sun visor in front of me and moved it to the side. Upon moving it I noticed a crack in the windshield that ran from the top right hand corner of the windshield to about 3/4 of the way across and about 1/3 of the way down the windshield. From there it spider [webbed] out into two directions for about 3 inches and the other about 7 inches.
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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.