Incredible: Watch Multiple Lightning Strikes Go Through a Plane, Continue to Fly Safely

There’s some pretty incredible video of a Wow Air Airbus A330-300 flying through a lightning storm enroute from Iceland to Paris on Monday.

While on average it’s said that every commercial plane is struck by lightning at least once a year, I believe it’s been over 40 years since a crash has been attributed to a lightning strike. The fuselage of a plane will conduct electricity and allow it to trasmit from the strike and generally out the tail.

While takeoff had been delayed due to weather, the aircraft continued on its way to Paris without further incident.

Last year there was a ‘striking’ incident on a Reykjavik to Denver Icelandair flight that caused a gaping hole in the plane’s nose — the aircraft flew 8 hours and the damage wasn’t even noticed until arrival.

Meanwhile earlier this year a China Southern Boeing 737-800 was struck by lightning minutes after passengers had disembarked the aircraft. That one was a bit scarier, at least watching the video.

(HT: @pir8z40)

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. an airplane is essentially a big faraday cage. lightning effectively poses no threat because the electricity stays outside.

    but it’s a different story on the ground, with fuel lines and other equipment.

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