Why is the plane hit by lightning?

Experts recalled a disaster similar to the last horrifying plane crash in Moscow that occurred on August 16, 2010 at the airport on Colombia's San Andres Island: a Boeing 737 aircraft struck by lightning. Paralyzes the automatic control system . While landing, the plane crashed into the runway and broke into 3 tracks. But, fortunately, the plane did not fire and in this disaster no one died.

Difficult to escape from lightning

Dr. Eduard Baselyan, professor of electric discharge, said that despite all the advanced equipment, it is still difficult to save the aircraft from lightning. According to world statistics, an average of 3 thousand flight hours, each aircraft is struck by lightning once. Lightning often hits aircraft with engines in the rear (this type is less and less manufactured). But lightning did not ignore aircraft with engines hanging under the wings (like the Boeing suffered in Colombia and the Superjet-100 burned in Sheremetyevo).

The aircraft attracts lightning by a stream of hot air from the engine, with temperatures up to 800 degrees Celsius . The electric strength of hot air is very low, making it easy to create lightning easily. This explains why lightning often hits fires on the ground.

However, not only that. As a rule, large planes are often the victims of self-generating lightning strikes . These lightning strikes are not generated by the surrounding thunderclouds, but due to the phenomenon of releasing electricity from the aircraft itself, for example, from the tail of the plane to the cloud and from the nose to the ground, in the same direction. at. An electric current of hundreds of thousands of amperes passes through the fuselage.

Large planes are often the victims of self-generating lightning strikes.

Lightning - etching of electronic devices

Lightning can damage electronic devices on aircraft.The main danger of lightning on equipment is electromagnetic radiation . In the blink of an eye in the affected area, modern microelectronic circuit systems can be partially or completely damaged. Experts say that the important electronic devices in the control system after being struck immediately by lightning are completely better than still operating in a state of unfinished life, then giving out false information and instructions that make pilots miserably misleading decisions, but in such situations, if the pilot manually controls and intuitively can avoid disaster.

When does lightning strike more dangerous - during a good flight or during takeoff or landing?

It is known that lightning is very dangerous for low-flying aircraft , because then, the aircraft can play the role of a line of lightning from the cloud to the ground. Experts say that high-altitude aircraft are frequently struck by lightning, but rarely lead to disasters. But there have been many cases of aircraft being struck by lightning when taking off and landing, even when on the ground and the consequences are huge.

Efforts to reduce risk

In order to minimize the possibility of lightning strikes, every modern aircraft undergoes tests of lightning capacity. An electric current equivalent to lightning in a thunderstorm (about 200,000 amps) is transmitted through the fuselage. And not 1, but 2, 3 pulses. In fact, lightning often follows the same path many times. After experimenting with electric current, everything will be checked again. Particularly vulnerable are fuel tanks, antennas, and external sensors. Flying safety depends directly on them, and can be difficult to hide them from lightning.

To reduce the risk of lightning strikes, metal elements of the aircraft's outer shell are electrically connected together and non-metallic elements are metalized. Thanks to that, the resistance of the fuselage can be lowered. To avoid being targeted by lightning and other atmospheric currents, the aircraft is equipped with devices that release charge.

Scientists acknowledge that in general today, despite a lot of modern knowledge and advanced machinery, measures to solve the problem of atmospheric electricity, including lightning and thunderstorms, are not much better than with a century ago.

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