Froggmann says:

Passengers nothing! I hate to smell what the cockpit smelled like after that flight!

Tom says:

Planes are designed and tested for such occurrences. It is like being in a car with a high tension line resting on it. The current flows harmlessly around everything within the vehicle and does no damage to the vehicle itself or the contents. By the way, lightning flows from the ground to the sky and what you see here is one continuous bolt. However, the pilots are required to write up a lightning strike report after such an incident and the plane would have to be inspected for any damage.

bobbo says:

So what is meant when it is said that lightning is xxxxx degrees==many times hotter than the surface of the sun? Aluminum melts at a pretty low temperature.

What am I missing other than “it goes right thru the airplane?”

Ben says:

#6 & 7 – Post 4 is right. The plane is designed to be able to survive a flight through a lighting storm without a scratch. It is required for inspection only as a safety measure. The principal is much like a Faraday box, when you are safe even though there are millions of volts around you. Have you ever seen people work the high voltage power lines? Same principle, different approach.

bobbo says:

9—Joey—thanks==yes, I was thinking “resistance” but didn’t make the connection. There is still a lightning bolt where it enters and leaves the farraday cage and it is meeting the air resistance there and creating millions of degrees? Ok—short time frame then is the issue==but the bolt seems to maintain contact for some time. Being one quarter of an inch away from the sun should still be pretty hot–even for a nano second?

But experience says, obviously not.

Mandarin says:

sooo…..

who got superpowers?

The Monster's Lawyer says:

I have it on authority that the Norse dieties have caused this calamity. It turns out that Thor had been angered by his servant Thialfi. Thialfi was caught feeding Maku the sea monster the magical fuit from the dilidos tree. The plane was just in the wrong place at the right time. Thor’s sons Odin and Jord could not be located for comment.

highqham says:

The web site states “Notice the ground and air bolt feeder strike at the same time.” Actually, if you ever see a movie or picture of an aircraft with just one lightning bolt striking, you can pretty much rule that it’s a fake. A plane, even a jumbo jet, can only store a small amount of charge, much much less than that in a lightning strike. The strike, after hitting a plane will continue to whatever its destination was. The charge can’t just remain on the plane’s skin.

The danger is not electrocution. The big worries are igniting the fuel, especially if the tanks are partially empty, and disruption of the avionics. Fuel ignition can happen two ways, actual penetration of the skin and a spark caused by the strike current in the tank. Wing tank skin thickness is designed to prevent the first, and proper bonding around the tanks the second.

As for avionics disruptions, the systems are tested heavily to prevent such occurrences.

Lightning strikes leave a pitted area on the aluminum skin. The aluminum is thick and able to disperse the heat of the strike without major damage. Occasionally a lightning strike will hit the fuselage at the junction of a window. These strikes are carefully examined and repaired because they can initiate fatigue cracks at that critical point. This would not be a danger to the flight when the plane got struck but possibly to a future flight after numerous pressurization cycles. All lightning strikes are carefully inspected and either the pitting is polished out or replaced.

Lightning strikes are much more common than one thinks. Often they are not even noticed by the passengers.

WANNABE EDITOR says:

Wasn’t THIS (really cool watch it again) posted a month or two ago? Don’t look it up, I really don’t care.

As #3 said: “Plane = Giant floating Faraday cage”…