What happens when a plane is strucked by lightning?

Question

I'm curios about that how Jumbo-Jets pass out the electricity from her body. Or the body is made by a non-conduct material(or its imposible, conductors can't stand high temperatures) could anyone tell me!

Answer 1

This does happen but damage is rare because the plane is not grounded. (meaning it is difficult for the electricity to touch both the plane and the ground).

Answer 2

As odd as it sounds lightning strikes really arent that deadly for aircraft in flight.

http://ask.yahoo.com/20031128.html

I would imagine a strike directly to a jet engine might do some damage, but as far as straight to the fuselage for some reason its ok.

Here is a video of a plane in flight getting hit by lightning.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseac...

Answer 3

The USAF requires an extensive inspection on the outside of the aircraft. Most of our damage is usually on the nose radome.

Answer 4

I love some of these answers.

I was hit by lightning once while flying a Hercules. The strike entered the nose and exited the tail. Most of the damage was on the nose radome.

We did lose some electronics but landed safely. After landing a full check of the electronics was carried out, this resulted in about a week of downtime.

The radome, radar, and the duck bill on the tail (full of holes) was replaced.

Answer 5

I saw an airplane I was downloading the other day that had a "half dollar" piece of metal from the trailing edge of the rudder. It had been struck by lightning. The mechanics inspected it and called the engineering dept and decided it was "in limits" so they continued with the flight. Another one a few years ago had all it's on board computers burned out but they were still able to land safely.