Graphite does some interesting things when struck by lightning. When I worked on AH-64D Apaches years ago a thunderstorm came across the field one night and an aircraft in parking suffered a strike to the VHF whip antenna at the top of the tail pylon.
This antenna is half aluminum and half graphite, the lower aluminum half exploded with enough force to cause puncture damage to the skin on the two tail rotor blades that happened to be aligned with the antenna.
The graphite portion, normally approximately 2 feet long and maybe 5/16” diameter, resembled a horses tail, all the fibers had separated into their individual strands.
The stabilator and tail pylon had to be removed for repair because of extensive additional structural damage(including sheared rivets and distortion in secondary structures), and the tail landing gear drag beam bushings were also damaged as the lightning traveled through to the ground wire on the tail gear.
Both the tail rotor and intermediate gearboxes were replaced as well.
Quite impressive.
FltMech