It is estimated that a plane is struck by lightning every 1,000 flight hours. Electric shock does not pose a danger to passengers, thanks to the effect known as Faraday cage. Despite this, seeing how lightning strikes a plane continues to surprise and frighten, as happened on Tuesday, November 1st with a flight from Flintshire, Wales to Hamburg, Germany.
The incredible, frightening moment was recorded by a NextBase dash cam, located in the vehicle: lightning struck an Airbus Beluga cargo plane shortly after take-off from Hawarden Airport.
The plane was on its way to Hamburg when the crash occurred, NorthWalesLive reports.
Fortunately, no one was injured and the plane landed safely on German soil shortly after 2.30pm.
The video shows lightning striking the rear of the Airbus Beluga before exiting the nose of the 63-meter long XL5 plane.
With a wingspan of 63 meters (197 feet 10 inches), the Beluga is designed to carry large loads.
As reported Mirror. the XL model is an expansion of the original Airbus Beluga and has 35% more storage space. As such, it can carry two Airbus A350 aircraft wings.
Glenn Smethurst captured the moment the plane was struck by lightning on his NextBase car dash cam. Soon after, he shared the images on the networks after dozens of people reported hearing a big “explosive” sound and seeing a bright white flash.
People living in the area have reported power outages and loss of television signal following lightning strikes.
The episode in Amsterdam
In November 2017 and while there was an electrical storm over Amsterdam, the Dutch capital, a KLM Boeing 777-300 managed to take off without any problems and leave for Lima. But a few minutes later he was struck by lightning. Entered through the nose of the vehicle and exited through the left wing without causing any damage.
The images of what happened were captured by a video amateur at Amsterdam-Schiphol airport and shared on his YouTube channel, called Valk Aviation. The mesmerizing video went viral and surpassed one million views in just a few days.
The flight continued and reached the capital of Peru without any consequences for the passengers or crew. The main reason is that modern commercial aircraft are excellent Faraday cages.
This theory, discovered by physicist Michael Faraday, states that the electromagnetic field in the inner region of a conductor is zero, negating the effect of external fields that can affect the conductor. This explains why, when lightning strikes an aircraft, the electrical discharges circulate around the outside of the ship and do not affect the inside.
Source: Clarin
