Now I am just curious. I was watching the evening news tonight and their lead story was a Horizon Air Dash 8-400 that was struck by lightning shortly after take off from SeaTac (KSEA). What damage is likey to be done by a lightning strike? The news crew was so worked up over it you would have thought the plane was blown out of the sky! :-jumpy :-eekThe plane was reportedly only about 7 miles out when the strike happened and they turned around and came back into SeaTac.

>What damage is likey to be done by a lightning strike? Unless you have someone flying with you who is very unlucky ( ;) ), little to no damage should happen, the energy is absorbed by the fuselage...the plane will go through a inspection on the ground though... look a few topics down- there is a post about a 747 lightning strike, a lot of information is enclosed there.... news crews... psht... a plane lands a bit hard and they assume the worst :+

>look a few topics down->there is a post about a 747 lightning strike, a lot of>information is enclosed there.Here i the linkhttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...11931&mode=fullWolfgang

Well, actually...lightning strikes are most likely not going to cause any damage that could be potentially life threatning. They can, however, do serious damage to an aircraft's electrical system..which can make things very difficult when flying in IMC (which you most likely would have been in if you were struck by lightning in the first place). It really just depends on where the aircraft is hit.