Lightning Strikes (merged)
 

Spoke with a passenger involved with significant lightning strike on FR557 from Manchester to Dublin on evening of 8th january. Apparantly there was short on board electrical failure and significant drop in altitude.. Any further info?

Why would a lightning strike cause a loss of altitude especially a 'significant' loss? :confused: Me thinks you've been misinformed...

What elec source is the normal Ac/Press supplied by? There in might lie the answer.

Mr L.

Oh yeah my bad :ugh:

But still, a lightning strike leading to engine failure, sounds a little hollywood to me...

I've been struck by lighting several times (not to abnormal in Southern Africa) in both Airbus and Boeing types. It's a complete non-event. There might be a bit of media spin on the go here.

There was also a lightning strike from stansted to belfast on a ryanair flight one of my friends was on. there supposedly was a big bang then the engine failed and the pilot dropped to 20,000 feet and continued flying on one engine to belfast.

Unlike the first poster at least we know you are taking the p%ss.

Ops normal
 

I followed the 557 in trail, speed controlled by Dublin and Manch Radar: the aircraft was around 5 miles ahead of me all the way across the Irish Sea.

Not a peep from the crew; ops normal all the way.

Red herring there folks.:suspect:

EI-DHR flew the 557 on the 8th,no LS reported,total BS,this thread should be deleted.

Not a red herring
 

Guys definatley not a red herring. Guy in mortal fear of flying after the event. He is an experienced traveller so there was a significant event.. Power loss was in the cabin only probably only lights that failed. FO came on after about 5 mins and advised that there had been a lightning strike and that following a systems check all was OK they were continuing to Dublin. There was no engine failure just a change in engine note probably to compensate for the altitude drop. No media involved in this purely a report form a guy on board

I am looking at DHR records right now and i am 100% percent certain that this aircraft flew FR557 on the january the 8th,it did not suffer any lightning strike,i have all the info at my disposal and you are talking absolute rubbish,total and utter rubbish.

Gary.. I am only asking the question and reporting what I heard.. No need to get excited. For sure there was some incident on the aircraft maybe not significant enough in the crews eyes for the crew to record but significant enough for the passanger to ask the question. maybe something more will come to light in the coming days :)

No it wont,these incidents are immediately reported to us,when a lightning strike occurs,every inch of the aircraft is checked for damage,it simply wont come to light in the next few days......

Lightning strikes ? Part of "the baggage" as always.
If you ain't had, you will .........

> and the pilot dropped to 20,000ft < ... and the other pilot ??
> significant drop in altitude.. < ......... air pocket !

.........didn't realise they knocked you out of the sky !!

As divinehover says, > It's a complete non-event. <

OK,guys, so I'm taking the p*ss but, like you, I get fed up of this overdramatic garbage.

BTW, what happened to the fine art of AVOIDING them ? Any ex-AEW pilots out there?

:ugh: :ugh:

The FO obviously made an error then in what he reported to the cabin.."Lightning strike" were his words not the passengers. I accept fully your position and information you have to hand.. Just looking to shed some further light on what may have happened

I was watching the SBS and listening to my airband radio throughout the storm (which was right over me!) and RYR557 landed without any problems

apparantley happened during the climb out of Manchester not at the Dublin end

how many times do i need to say this didnt happen!?:ugh:


Apparently is right!

gary
Saying it didn't happen 100 times is a bit counter productive. I am sure we will all believe you if you say instead "the crew didn't report it", as you appear to have acess to the tech records. I am ashamed to say that I have gone home after four sectors having forgotten a problem suffered on the first sector, easily done, and as has been previously stated a lightning strike ain't such a big deal. Maybe time to get off PPrune guy and get out there inthe p@ssing DUB rain and inspect that skin ? All this assumes of course that you are not the F/O but a ginger-beer or some other ops bod.

Thank you!! Not disputing that it was not reported but may still have happened...

MAN-DUB flights generally dont reach much higher than 16000ft or so anyway as normal flight time generally only hits the 35 minute mark.So its not beyond the bounds of probability that beginning of descent coinciding with the LS,hence description of rapid descent or whatever it was. It all seems more than a little Daily Mail to me.

different post mentioned the "plummet" not relevant to the MAN -DUB flight

Ooops, my mistake...
 

Temporary Power loss a possibility.The Loss in Altitude could be deliberately by the crew,suspecting an unwanted problem.
regds
MEL

All you who think a lightning strike is a non-event, read on
A Deutshe BA Fokker 100 was hit by lightning at rotation out of ARN some moons ago.
First message was Nbr 1 eng low oil pressure. He shut the engine down as directed by the ECAM. As the engine wound down he got a message Nbr 2 engine low oil pressure. He kept it running, ignored the ECAM telling him to shut it down, and landed pronto.
On investigation Both oil pressure sensors had failed due to the lightning strike. We changed one (only could borrow one from Transwede) and MEL'd the other.
The Fokker rep at TAT said that this was a known problem with the Tay engine (but not known to any of us at ARN)

Did this ever happen to you?
 

Yep, climbing out of Nice about 6 years ago. No after effects at all!:eek::eek:

I would have thought it wouldn't cause too many problems- lightning travels through path of least resistance, so probably just through the skin of the aircraft and not much else- just what I imagine would happen.

Yes; many, many times with no effect apart from a small hole or two on a few occasions.

I doubt that many airline pilots will get through a career without being struck once or twice!

Like a lot of pilots I've had a few and from the inside it is very, very bright! This is amazing footage of what it looks like from the outside. I'll try and be more afraid next time it happens :eek:

I did once see a glider get hit by lightning when it was still attached to the winch cable. Well, if you go and stick a 1000 foot lightning conductor near a big, black cloud then what do you expect. The pilot was mildly shaken.

Unlike the other glider who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and got blown to bits:
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources...pdf_500699.pdf

I've had 3 over the years and it has not affected me at all Wubble bing bang harumph

Lighting and the Faraday box
 

I trust all you aircrew watched the TV programme tonight on lightning. They were explaining how an aircraft acts like a Faraday box and distributes the current around the airframe and then releases it causing little damage. BUT their view on what will happen with composites - like the 787 - was quite alarming. Obviously they are trying to resolve this issue; in fact with with copper mesh but on the trial skin it burnt badly. Any more updates on this problem?