The moment a lightning bolt struck a commercial passenger plane mid-flight has been caught on tape. None of the 500 passangers on board the Emirates Airlines Airbus A380 were injured as the plane flew through a storm as it approached London's Heathrow Airport.
Videographer Chris Dawson, 37, pointed his digital camera at the plane from his terrace in south-west London about 7.30pm local time. "I saw a storm coming and I thought there could be lightning," he told Abu Dhabi's English language newspaper The National.
"I wasn't expecting it to hit a plane but I just got fortunate." The plane landed without incident.
A United Emirates spokesperson told the newspaper lightning strikes are not rare and that every plane in its fleet is designed and certified to withstand a lightning strike.
Just yesterday a Qantas Boeing 737-800 en route from Auckland to Melbourne was forced back mid-flight after a suspected lightning strike — but it too landed without damage or injury to passengers.
The average lightning bolt produces a current of 20,000 amps and can attain temperatures of 30,000C
But an airplane's metal hull forms a Faraday confine that protects it from lightning, carrying the electric charge through the hull and expelling it at an output point without harming the aircraft or the passengers inside.
Videographer Chris Dawson, 37, pointed his digital camera at the plane from his terrace in south-west London about 7.30pm local time. "I saw a storm coming and I thought there could be lightning," he told Abu Dhabi's English language newspaper The National.
"I wasn't expecting it to hit a plane but I just got fortunate." The plane landed without incident.
A United Emirates spokesperson told the newspaper lightning strikes are not rare and that every plane in its fleet is designed and certified to withstand a lightning strike.
Just yesterday a Qantas Boeing 737-800 en route from Auckland to Melbourne was forced back mid-flight after a suspected lightning strike — but it too landed without damage or injury to passengers.
The average lightning bolt produces a current of 20,000 amps and can attain temperatures of 30,000C
But an airplane's metal hull forms a Faraday confine that protects it from lightning, carrying the electric charge through the hull and expelling it at an output point without harming the aircraft or the passengers inside.
