Lightning strike shakes fliers

[graemer]

Passengers on an Air New Zealand flight from Wellington to Auckland yesterday afternoon were shaken by a lightning strike during their descent.

NZ Herald Link

Interesting that this made the papers... We missed our connection so as Qantas were organising putting us up in a hotel, the conversation was around an Argentine flight that was hit by lightning on approach to AKL earlier in the evening. Ground staff were saying that it actually punctured the plane around the cockpit area.

Not sure how true is, but there was an Aerolineas Argentinas plane nosed in to the Air NZ maintenance hanger when we flew out this morning. There was nothing in the paper though.

Anyone able to confirm this?

[towerguy]

both Argentinas and Lan Chile over the beachlands area following one behind the other for the 23L ILS got hits from the same cell one after the other.

damage to Lan Chile


numerous other near misses. Aircraft are still avoiding weather like crazy all over the place, even as I sit here now at work there is lightning going off all over the place. The place was brought to a standstill yesterday while all refuelling operations stopped at the height of the storms.

[Anthony]

Wow nice. Lightning strikes can be bad - but this one seems to not have done too much really bad damage.
Thanks for posting that picture towerguy.
The Air NZ flight didn't seem to be affected, but it probably freaked a couple of the passengers out - strange balls of light and such.

[Daniel]

OOH Not the best way to end a long flight.
How long will that take to fix? Do they need to get a part in?

[d3fai13r]

QUOTE (Daniel @ Jun 26 2008, 07:24 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

How long will that take to fix?

I saw LAN departing yesterday at 10:55(just before rain starts) and also Aerolineas A340 pushed from ANZ eng.services at 14:45.

[Anthony]

An MP and some other pax had their Air NZ plane hit by lightning out of AKL on NZ2.
It's not worth making a new thread over a politician and a bit of lightning.
Here's the Stuff link: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4609546a11.html

[SUBS17]

If its dark sometimes you get early warning signs that lightning is about to hit an aircraft, the nose glows and builds up static electricity(St Elmos Fire). Generally lightning strikes don't cause too much damage to aircraft although the weather and ice is more of a hazard which is something you would want to avoid.

[SA227]

QUOTE

Generally lightning strikes don't cause too much damage to aircraft[/quote]

That would depend on where you got hit. In Metros and 1900's it has a nasty habit of knocking generators off line and they can be very difficult to reset after receiving a belt of electricity. A hit on a prop can do serious bearing damage through out the engine and has resulted in engine failures, I know of a rolls royce dart and a PT6 that were destroyed following a strike on the prop.
The ice is easily avoided, with the lightning you don't even have to be IMC to get a hit.

[Kelburn]

My dad was on an Ansett 146 that was on approach to Auckland. They were flying through lightning and there was a big flash and then the plane went dark for a short spell. The lights came back on and the captain said nothing to worry about. As they were leaving my dad could see a hole in the front of the aeroplane clearly caused by lightning

[Daniel]

A friend of mine who was flying the beech a few days ago was hit and needed something on the wing replaced.
This is happening quite a lot at the moment. Dangerous stuff

Cheers
Daniel

[Alfashark]

Never had a direct strike myself, but have flown a very hasty retreat from an over-developed thermal street over Mclarens Falls in the Lower Kaimais when it started to discharge... Frighteningly impressive, and bloody loud!
Was particularly wary as it wasnt long after this lightning strike on a glider in the UK
While cruising around in wave conditions, I've seen/felt static charge building up, usually due to flying directly into wind - 90 degrees to the wave bar and just skimming through the top of the cloud (at about 16k the very leading edge of the lenticular is made up of a constant stream of tiny ice crystals that quickly sublimate back to a normal "vapour" as they merge with the rest of the cloud)