When you travel extensively, you become accustomed to the routine of flying. You snag your window seat, unpack your kit of ipod, neck pillow, and water bottle, and then get down to the serious business of ignoring the flight attendent’s safety instructions. As a person to whom American Airlines once sent christmas cookies, I am the classic seasoned traveller.
However, I had a first yesterday, descending through the somewhat inclement cloud cover over Sydney. As I looked out the window to see if I could get a glimpse of the city, I instead got to watch the wing of the plane get hit by lightning (accompanied by a loud CRACK, which is the last noise you ever want to hear on a plane).
Now the startling thing in retrospect was that this was completely non-terrifying. The event ended before I could really process what had happened, and absolutely nothing happened to the plane. Lights didn’t dim, movie didn’t stop, oxygen masks didn’t drop. Yeah, there was a bit of screaming, but it didn’t really seem necessary as we showed no signs of plummeting out of the sky. Like running into birds, this is clearly something that planes are designed to cope with.
July 9th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
Amazing!
A billion volts, about 3×10^22 electrons, a giga Joule of energy dissipated smoothly in the metal shell.
There is this an interesting video of a minivan being hit by a lightening ; it has all the fireworks and sparks and the majesty of a lightening that one expects.
But at the same time, other than seeing the peripheral sparks, nobody in the van even noticed or knew that lightening hit them!
So Julliane, did you see or feel any Tertiary gamma ray flash? Darn!
Thanks for sharing; glad you are safe and sound and a bit charged, hopefully.
July 9th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Strangely, lightning is less dangerous to a plane than birds. Birds are very dangerous if sucked into an engine. It’ll almost certainly cause an emergency landing though not likely to cause a catastrophic failure. And throwing a bird at a plane at 350+mph can do some serious harm to the plane’s skin (and the bird’s).
July 9th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
you can throw a bird at 350+mph?
damn. you should play baseball or something.
July 9th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
As for cars the main strength against lightning is coincidental. But googling shows that there are standards for tests against the effects. I wouldn’t expect them to cover all the risks.
Yet planes affected by lightning seems to be virtually nonexistent. In spite of that airplanes that flies through storms frequently gets hit. Airliners avoids storms and seems to get hit about twice a year. Wikipedia notes that more powerful positive lightning has damaged planes.
July 10th, 2007 at 12:37 am
lol – Just as well!
But never mind jumbos
Have you ever been on these smaller planes where the pilot can’t get the cabin pressure right and descends too steeply — you look around and see the rest of the passengers sitting there dumbstruck — thinking the pain is Normal.
You’d think some would go to the cockpit and scream in the pilots ear, but I guess fear of being confused as a terrorist (and shot by the air marshall) or being accused of being drunk and abusive (and thrown off the plane), keeps passengers patiently gritting their teeth and trying to swallow hard.
And we pay for this – even if it is cheap air travel it should be pain free.
Mind you so should dentistry & surgery – but there are lots of saddists out there who like to cause pain – and charge you for the pleasure!
July 10th, 2007 at 7:15 am
Planes have to meet lightning standards. As well as most items in the planes. Not only the effects of being hit by lightning, but also the EM fields made by lightning. They are tested extensively. Also remember that planes are all conductive, metal skins and all. Of course the new 787 is composite and not conductive, so what is Boeing doing to protect it?
CraigD
July 10th, 2007 at 7:32 am
From what I’ve heard, planes are designed to handle traditional, top-down lightning strikes, but are decidedly unable to handle the rarer and much higher powered, ground-up “positive lightning” strikes. Or so said the wikipedia entry I devoured when my three-year old became inquisitively obsessed with lightning.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:10 am
Hi Julianne: I wonder if it is a season for physicists’ planes being touched by lightning?
Bee’s plane was hit by lightning a little while ago when it landed at Munich airport. The airline had to take it out of commission (and Bee missed her connection to Frankfurt).
July 10th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Don’t you just love Faraday cages?
As for the Boeing 787, one of the layers of the composite skin is actually a copper mesh, so worry not.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:26 am
That’s fantastic! A couple of weeks ago, while stuck on a runway in the middle of a thundershow, I was talking to a guy who has been a pilot for about twenty years … he claimed that lightning hitting planes isn’t all that common, especially as in all of his time flying he’d never been on a plane that was struck.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:29 am
q at 2, speaking of birds, there is a story or perhaps urban legend, that when the French were testing their high-speed trains, they wanted to see what would happen when a bird hit the front of the train head-on. So they used a dead chicken for this. Much to their amazement the cabin glass was shattered and the chicken made quite a dent in the wall. So they asked their aviation colleagues whether this kind of damage has ever happened to a plane. The
colleagues response was that before you do the test, you must first defrost the chicken. Does anyone know if this is really true ?
Juliane, hope you have a good time at the conference in Sydney.
July 10th, 2007 at 9:38 am
I’ve heard the same story Fermi. Looks like it may just be urban legend though:
Snopes on the chicken cannon.
July 10th, 2007 at 9:58 am
haw … i was actually just wondering about a car getting hit by lightening on the train today – would it act like a Faraday cage of sorts and the drivers be ok – i figured the drivers probably would be safe.
i hadn’t thought about the plane scenario but it is nice to know! one less thing to worry about!
Evan
July 10th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Although the lightning is not dangerous, the wind shear caused by the thunderstorm can be dangerous.
July 10th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
#11: Mythbusters took that one on, and it’s busted. Thawed and frozen chickens do just about the same amount of damage.
July 10th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Back in 1999 I was flying on one of those tiny little propeller things from DC to North Carolina into hurricane Dennis and the wings were hit by lightnings every couple of minutes. I was holding onto my seat. All the other passengers were asleep – Ft.Brag marines all of them.
July 10th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Speaking of traveling extensively: Looking for an alternative career? How about becoming a Mileage Runner:
Inside the World of Mileage Running
Assembling a mileage run means deciphering complex fare rules and pulling together information from up to a dozen websites. It’s an achievement that tickles the same satisfying problem-solving centers of the brain as a Sudoku puzzle, and always ends in the deep-rooted human thrills of travel and flight.
Conference hopping seems to be a good preparation for that, eh? Though I have to say I wouldn’t fly back and forth to LHR four times in a row, not even if you’d promise me the next Nobel prize.
Best,
B.
July 10th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
My Dad once fired chickens into jet engines for GE. They were frozen.
July 10th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
I’d be willing to bet (or hope) that a lot of study went into making sure that the new carbon-fiber 787 “Dreamliner” is as safe as metal-shell planes wrt lightning…
July 11th, 2007 at 4:33 am
If the tests are anything like certifications for dangers and interference from electronics equipment, it will cover standardized situations but are no guarantee. Especially fault situations are carefully considered, but are always individual for the equipments construction.
It is virtually impossible to protect against or cover every situation. And most of the tests will assume that the equipment is used and serviced correctly due to that.
Besides, I’m not sure if models of lightning and lightning effects have improved much lately, but the models I was taught once was decidedly rather primitive. OTOH, the course included visiting a research facility, and seeing the simulated lightning hits up close were even more fun than a real thunder storm.
))
July 11th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I was on a flight that took a bird into the engine during takeoff or just shortly thereafter. The engine made a weird noise (but no shaking) and we turned around and landed (full emergency personel were following us as a precaution).
Evidently the pilot turned the engine off within a few seconds after taking the bird in, and there was no further mishap. They told us about a minute afterwards that they were going to turn around.
However, while I was deplaning, I saw the engine itself, and let me just say it was shocking. The Blades of the engine were completely warped from the impact. So yea its dangerous, even though it was not that apparent.
July 15th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Julianne,
Are you going to make it to Stomlo while you’re over here?
July 16th, 2007 at 2:35 am
I wish! I love Australia, but my family needs me at home, so home I go! Eventually it’ll be practical to drag them along with me, but I learned from experience that taking the kids through that many time zones isn’t worth it for less than a month. I guess I’ll just have to come back for a month! I brought back some “Honey Soy Chicken Flavored” potato chips as a joke, and my oldest kid thought they were the most delicious thing to have passed over her tongue, so she’s probably game.