It was a cold rainy day in October of 2016. Huge balls of hail crashed into the ground.
In short, it wasn’t a good day to fly, and Wow Air Flight 404 headed from Reykjavík,
Iceland to Paris, France would soon understand why…
That iconic fuchsia-colored plane was struck by a massive bolt of lightning not long after
taking off! But did she go down? You’d think so given that a single lightning bolt carries
1 billion volts of electric force with it. That’s enough to power a 60-watt lightbulb
for half a year!
But it doesn’t end there! Lightning is 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun,
so when it strikes, the air around the bolt heats up faster than the speed of sound. The
result: an ear-shattering crack of thunder that sounds more like a nearby explosion.
And they don’t call it lightning for nothing – the light is almost blinding when you’re
dangerously close to a strike. Hey, speaking of which, what’s the craziest weather you’ve
ever seen? Let me know down in the comments!
Anyway, lightning is one powerful force of Mother Nature. So just imagine being on a
flight and all that happening to the plane!? I’m almost too afraid to find out what the
damage would look like. An exterior burnt black like a piece of coal? A shredded fuselage?
A fire on board? No, nope, and negative. Surprisingly, lightning doesn’t do much damage to aircraft!
For one thing, lightning doesn’t hit airplanes that often these days. Security rules don’t
allow pilots to fly into a storm front. The plane should go around a thundercloud but
never above or under it. First of all, they don’t usually fly over them since the cloud
tops can rise too high. And if they fly below it, lightning will hit the plane for sure.
I mean, it’s a hunk of pure metal moving through the air – what would you expect!?
But they’re able to avoid storms thanks to special onboard weather radars.
Ok, but if a lightning strike doesn’t bring a plane down or do any threatening damage,
then why do they avoid storms? Well, it’s not because of the lightning itself but extreme
turbulence that might happen inside a storm. Turbulence can cause serious troubles, including
loss of control over the aircraft. The shaking can also cause heavy bags to fall out of the
overhead bins and possibly hurt someone. That’s why the rule is that planes should never get
closer than 20 miles to the center of a storm. It’s marked red on the radar. Sometimes
pilots have to diverge from the route for dozens of miles just to avoid this heavy turbulence!
As it is now, with the existing safety rules in place, lightning hits a plane 1-2 times
a year if the aircraft is used regularly. But even then, it doesn’t usually lead to
any serious circumstances. Pilots can face lightning strikes once every 3,000 hours in
the air. That’s about one time in several years of working in commercial aviation. Passengers
spend much less time in the air, so it’s highly unlikely that they’ll board the plane
and go through what those folks headed from Iceland to France got to witness!
Out of 3,000 plane-related incidents since 2000, only 8 of them were caused by lightning
strikes.
Ok, that one’s clear. It's not as if lightning hits airplanes daily. But when it does strike,
how are jumbo jets protected from it?
Retired pilot Chris Hammond explains that before an aircraft goes into service, it gets
tested for all possible incidents. That includes a lightning strike simulation. When they just
started using composite materials for the plane’s skin (switching from the old aluminum
exteriors), they would fly into storm clouds on purpose to make sure that the new material
is just as safe.
As Hammond says, the pictures and videos of that Iceland lightning strike show exactly
how everything should work. The bolt usually hits the plane in the area of its nose and
leaves near the tail and partially through the wings. It does that because it chooses
the path of least resistance. Like between me and the cookie jar. Rather, it goes along
the plane’s metal skin but doesn’t get inside or damage any important parts.
Now that planes are covered not with pure aluminum but with composite materials, they
get a special layer of a conductive mesh made from copper foil. The mesh looks like an electrically
conductive canvass covering the plane’s skin. In short, the aircraft becomes one giant
Faraday cage. That’s a special mechanism that English physicist and inventor Michael
Faraday created way back in 1836 to protect devices from electromagnetic radiation. The
cage is still used for the same purpose and works quite simply. When an outer electromagnetic
field acts upon the cage, free electrons in its metal start moving. That charge gets redistributed
around the cage’s exterior and cancels any radiation that tries to get to the interior.
But protecting airplanes from lightning doesn’t end with the exterior materials. The internal
systems and cables are also covered with copper meshes. The fuel tanks get filled with a neutral
gas so that they don’t catch on fire. And finally, to lower the chances of coming into
a lightning bolt’s path, there are special static eliminators installed at the wings’
edges. Static discharge flows off them and out into the air. Thanks to that, the plane
always stays neutrally charged and doesn’t attract lightning in the first place. In case
lightning does hit, it’ll likely leave through the static eliminator.
Some minor damage to the skin, radio, or electronic devices might happen. But that’s not really
an urgent issue since all the critical devices are duplicated on board each plane.
But like I said, even aircraft of the newest designs are forbidden to fly into a storm
front. After all, 96% of all cases, even if they are rare, happen when the plane is inside
a storm cloud. If a strike did happen, pilots check all the systems. If anything goes wrong,
they land the plane at the nearest airport on the way. As for the case of those passengers
on board that Wow flight, the aircraft just continued on to its destination and landed
safely in Paris 3½ hours later! Gee did the passengers all say “Wow”? And if that
doesn’t convince you, in 2015, a different plane flying from Reykjavik got struck by
lightning and made it all the way to its destination in Denver, Colorado! I think the takeaway
here is, to avoid lightning hitting your plane, don’t fly out of Reykjavik. Am I wrong?
Of course, even if the flight makes it to the destination and everything seems ok, technicians
still carefully examine the aircraft once it’s on the ground to see if there’s any
micro damage to its skin. Spots where the lightning entered and exited the plane’s
exterior usually look like small melted holes no more than half an inch in diameter. They
can be fixed very quickly.
Sounds easy enough, but airlines lose millions of dollars because of flight delays caused
by these safety measures. At least now you know that sometimes you have to wait longer
for a good reason!
But can passengers notice anything on board during this impromptu light show? Sure, you
can hear a loud strike and see flashes outside the plane. The aircraft might even shake a
bit with all that energy and force going on outside. But this is a standard situation
that poses no danger for the flight. Lightning usually looks more frightening when you see
it on the ground and not on board the plane.
Hammond, as an experience pilot himself, recalls that at the beginning of his career, lightning
struck his plane as he was coming into San Francisco. The cockpit went black as all the
monitors shut down. Sounds terrifying, right? Luckily, like all airplanes, his was equipped
with analog flight control devices. While the systems were coming back to life, Hammond
managed to land the aircraft manually. Talk about skill and keeping a cool head!
Now you know that lightning is not a problem in modern aviation. A lot of design solutions
protect airplanes from any severe damage, and the risk of getting into an accident caused
by lightning is next to zero. In fact, the biggest risk caused by a lightning strike
(other than any turbulence going on out in that storm) is that passengers who notice
it can get scared and start panicking. But now you know there’s no need for that, so
keep calm and fly safe!
Or do what I do, and hide in the bathroom… nah, just kidding.
If you learned something new today, then give the video a like and share it with a friend!
And here are some other cool videos I think you'll enjoy. Just click to the left or right,
and stay on the Bright Side of life!