Understanding the mechanisms and consequences of lightning strikes on aircraft has been a decades-long learning experience.
When the first known lightning-caused airplane accident occurred in 1929, scientists and aeronautical engineers initially insisted that lightning played no part in the crash — and that there was “no proved instance of an airplane ever having been struck by lightning.”1 Over time, the experts of the 1920s were proved incorrect — aircraft lightning strikes occur frequently, although they rarely are associated with accidents.
Lightning is a discharge of electricity that occurs in the atmosphere and can be thought of as a high-current — about 20,000 amperes — electric spark associated with thunderstorms.
Lightning is produced when supercooled liquid and ice particles above the freezing level collide and build up large and separate regions of positive and negative electric charges in the clouds. After these charges become large enough, a…
