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Old 29th November 2007 | 09:25
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Kiwiconehead
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Joined: Jul 2000
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From: Australia
So let's narrow it down:How about the ground operations when lightning is overhead
In Australia the general rule is lightning within 5km of the airfield then all personnel vacate the ramp - various airports have different warning systems but the gist is the same - everybody inside the terminal or in an aircraft.
It's not unusual for aircraft to hold off airbridges for extended periods because no engineer on the gate for them to come on. On the regional side you can guarantee that the tarmac will be evacuated in that 2min window between the last punter boarding and the dispatcher bringing out the trim sheet - so no choice but to close up and sit there waiting, murphy usually arranges for the aircraft to have a u/s apu as well

There was an incident a number of years ago when an aircraft was zapped on the ramp in I think Sydney, there was an engineer on the headset and he got some nasty burns (lucky to be alive)
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