Week 9 Aero respond

Good Afternoon Class,

I wanted to talk about lightning strike occurrences with aircraft. According to Zoriy "an aircraft is struck by lightning every 1,000 flight hours" (2020, para. 3). At any given moment in time there can be a load of thunderstorms around the world which could possibly mean over 100 lightning strikes happening simultaneously. Lightning is electrostatic discharge in the clouds from an imbalance on the ground. Aircraft now have either static wick and lightning strips installed on them to allow for any strike of lightning that hits a part find an entry and an exit point on any part of the aircraft. This could have possibly helped the PAN AM 214 flight. The link below for Pan Am 214 Lightning Strike gives a thorough description of the tragic events on December 8th, 1963. The summary is that flight 214 from Pan Am flew near some clouds and was struck by lightning on "one of the aircraft's fuel tanks, causing an explosion and destroying one of the wings" (Zoriy, 2020, para. 11).  The aircraft began to burn and crash killing all 81 passengers on the flight. It was a tragic event caused by mother nature herself, but it did allow for more safety precautions to help other aircraft flying near or around thunderstorms.

-Chris