Lightning striking any object is enough to send shivers down your spine, but when the object is an aeroplane, it’s an event that can shake us to our very bones. Every time a plane plummets from the sky, we are reminded of how precarious flying is for us humans, and the force of lightning seems to highlight how much the heavens’ odds seem stacked against us. Yet exactly what danger does it present to planes?In the wake of the recent Air France Airbus AF447 disaster – which crashed into the Atlantic carrying 228 people, and whose cause at the time of writing remains unclear – let’s consider the phenomenon of lightning hitting planes, and weigh up how much of a risk it poses to our activities in the air.
