Lightning strike on plane at Heathrow

Aerohead

This is some bolt of lightning, wonder would the passengers feel it.

http://news.sky.com/story/1686540/lightning-strikes-plane-near-heathrow

Irish Steve

Fortunately, the aircraft is not connected to anything electrically, so the effect on it is the same as the effect of a bird landing on a high voltage overhead line, if you were to touch the bird, you'd know about it, and possibly kill the bird due to current passing through it, but while there's no connection to anything else, there's no effect on the aircraft. Localised damage can occur on the airframe, and if the bonding straps between different parts of the aircraft are not all in place and in good condition, more significant damage can occur. The strike itself can be spectacular, but won't as such affect the passengers or crew.

arubex

I know a piliot who flies for [REDACTED] whose A320 had a strike inbound to a Spanish airport. It made two neat holes in the airframe but after inspection was cleared to return to the UK on a non-revenue ferry flight.

Stovepipe

lightning strikes happen every day to commercial aircraft and you don't hear about 99% of them.

Negative_G

Stovepipe wrote: »

lightning strikes happen every day to commercial aircraft and you don't hear about 99% of them.

Probably because 99% of them aren't caught on video.

arubex

A bit of local media excitement up here in the north yesterday afternoon when Sunwing B738 C-FEAK was struck by lightning climbing-out from Aldergrove. It was a very stormy day and I'm surprised there weren't more strikes reported.

Returned for inspection and departed again three hours later. Operating TOM658 to Dalaman.

Bussywussy

Irish Steve wrote: »

Fortunately, the aircraft is not connected to anything electrically, so the effect on it is the same as the effect of a bird landing on a high voltage overhead line, if you were to touch the bird, you'd know about it, and possibly kill the bird due to current passing through it, but while there's no connection to anything else, there's no effect on the aircraft. Localised damage can occur on the airframe, and if the bonding straps between different parts of the aircraft are not all in place and in good condition, more significant damage can occur. The strike itself can be spectacular, but won't as such affect the passengers or crew.

The last bird strike I was involved in we ended up with a few missing static discharges,replaced a TAT probe,an ice detector,2 pitot probes and a HF transceiver!!! Pricey.

Irish Steve

Bussywussy wrote: »

The last bird strike I was involved in we ended up with a few missing static discharges,replaced a TAT probe,an ice detector,2 pitot probes and a HF transceiver!!! Pricey.

Pricey indeed.
I suspect you meant lightning strike rather than bird strike and that was one of the more rare "does damage" strikes. From a long time ago, I recall that one of our instructors made the comment that if the aircraft is in heavy cloud, or heavy rain/precipitation at the time of the strike, the damage can be more significant due to the discharge paths presented by water streaming off the airframe.

gctest50

They don't like positive lightning strikes too much


https://vimeo.com/166461970

At 20:58 the airplane suffered a lightning strike. This caused the initial ignition of flammable fuel vapours inside the left reserve fuel tank. This triggered explosions in the centre and right reserve fuel tanks as well. Fuel spilled and caught fire; the complete left wingtip separated as a result. The aircraft was then seen to crash in flames

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19631208-0

Irish Steve

gctest50 wrote: »

They don't like positive lightning strikes too much


https://vimeo.com/166461970

Indeed. That's a seriously impressive video, the frame rate makes it possible to see a lot more of what's actually happening during the strike, thanks for the link.

I might be wrong in this statement, there have been changes in the manner in which airframes are grounded and protected as a result of the sort of accident you mentioned, though I don't think that even now, empty tanks are inert gas filled, which was a factor in the TWA 747 loss a lot later (though that was due to a wiring fault rather than lightning). As with so many of these issues, the cost of implementing the fix when compared to the likely recurrence of the event becomes a factor, even more so with the ever increasing emphasis on driving down costs.

The one redeeming factor is that even when these rare events are taken into account, flying is not as such a dangerous thing to do.

Bussywussy

Irish Steve wrote: »

I suspect you meant lightning strike rather than bird strike .

Ha correct what was I thinking

Wibbs

Irish Steve wrote:

Fortunately, the aircraft is not connected to anything electrically, so the effect on it is the same as the effect of a bird landing on a high voltage overhead line, if you were to touch the bird, you'd know about it, and possibly kill the bird due to current passing through it, but while there's no connection to anything else, there's no effect on the aircraft.

Even when there was in a case like during the Moon shots when Apollo 12(well it was sort of an aircraft. It flew anyway ) was hit 30 odd seconds into the flight by not one but two bolts of lightning that earthed to ground through the exhaust gases the damned thing kept flying. Yes the shocks threw some of the systems for a wobbler and there was much clenching of cheeks in the cockpit, but it didn't blow it to bits or end the mission and that craft was in essence a controlled explosion surrounded by fuel and metal.