How is it possible for a plane to be brought down by lightning?

How is it possible for a plane to be brought down by lightning? Don't they already have safeguards? Couldn't the plane also just fly higher than the storm? Wouldn't this avoid any trouble?|||I won't say that lightning won't take down a plane but it is very difficult. There are static discharge wicks along the wings, elevator and rudder of the aircraft that protects the aircraft from lightning. But anything is possible, and a lightning strike seem to be the only reason left for the crash. Probably the strike cause some electrical systems to fail, which may include radio, the reason why the flight crew could not declare emergency. Also, as the A330 use the fly-by-wire system, the flight control electronics may have been damaged which could set the aircraft out of control.|||I was very surprised to hear on the news that some people had concluded that the aircraft was downed because of a lightning strike. They say the reason for this was that there was an electrical error message from the aircraft before it disappeared.


This was probably not what happened to the plane but sounded good at the time.


All passenger aircraft are build to withstand lightning strikes as they are a lot more common than people think.


I suspect that something major went wrong with the aircraft and the electrical error message was just a symptom of thing that were happening to the aircraft.


For example if there was a fire on the plane there would be electrical problems all over the aircraft as wires burn out.


Ja.|||you cannot fly higher than lightning can strike unless you are in the space shuttle they have seen sprites go far in to space from the earth also the electrical wattage of lightning is far more than we can produce in any manner on earth by man made equipment even a nuclear submarine battery is not even close to the smallest lightning strike and we have no man made material that can take the full electrical power of a bolt of lightning that is why we try to ground every thing that lightning will hit so it will dissipate the full force of the lightning they have found glass from lightning melting sand when it hits the Ground we have pretty good safety equipment to dissipate the strikes on aircraft it can still happen if you get a solid Direct hit on the plane it is more common than you may think but even less common for it to actually down the plane but the plane has a lot of electrical equipment that could be damaged by a electrical surge and also the compass witch is magnetic can be damaged also so it is pretty good chance it can happen on occasion|||Gordon33 has the answer. A lightning won't bring you down. I have had several lightning strikes and it's a BIG bang so that you think you're being blown out of the skies, and all you can see is a very bright light that almost blinds you. And you say your prayers and good-bye - and nothing happens.





It's the WEATHER that's so dangerous. The storms, severe turbulence, in a thunder storm. It can lift you up and press you down, you're shaken by shear winds and spirals that suck you up and down and make you nick and roll. This is the real danger, and no sane pilot having half his brain working would voluntarily fly into a thunder storm. These weathers can, I say CAN, break an aeroplane into pieces.





If AF447 indeed did fly into a thunderstorm, I'd ask myself why. It is known that there was a thunderstorm in that area and the flight ahead of AF447 reported SEVERE turbulence. It sometimes happens that you get caught in a storm that you did not notice on your radar. Then, you see yourself buggering off that area as fast as you can. I wonder why AF447 stayed on. Perhaps they did not realise until it was too late.|||They do have safeguards, and they work well as far as I know. Also, a plane can't take a serious strike because it doesn't complete a circuit with the ground. The worst that can happen is it gets caught in the middle of a strike, and the electricity is conducted through the outside shell of the plane.|||Anything that has electrical components has a negative or an earth pole. Lightning needs an earth to release its energy, so if the plane has a weak earthing point on the outside then it is possible the lightning could strike the plane above or under the storm as it's the closest to the storm than the ground.|||It cant happen , because the lightening conductor defuses the strike and it filters through the conductor ,they wont know the real cause of the plane coming down in the Atlantic ocean until they have found the black box recorder which hopefully will be soon ,|||they have anti lightening equipments... it passes the electricity produced by the lightening to the outside atmosphere.... it can't happen easily unless there is a damage in the aircraft prior to get struck by the lightening... no one knew what is the exact cause 4 the missing aircraft..|||When lightning stikes an aircraft in flight the charge passes harmlessly to Earth around the outer skin of the aircraft.





This is known as a 'Faraday's Cage'.|||Thunder Storms can go up as high as 70,000 feet, which is 27,000 feet higher than this airplane can fly.