Airlinair ATR72 makes emergency landing in Clermont-Fd (Fr) after lightning strike

[alainthailande]

My first post here, I'm usually a silent reader but I was suprised not to see this news make it to this forum yet.
Article is in french: Un avion de la compagnie Airlinair atterrit d'urgence à Clermont-Ferrand, Société - NouvelObs.com
The text mentions that a lightning stike cause depressurization in the cabin (apparently progressive) that prompted for the emergency landing.
Flight was scheduled from Beziers to Paris. Plane was carrying 23 passengers + 3 staff, all walked away safely. Only 8 people complained of ear discomfort and were taken to hospital for examination.

[FougaMagister]

Midi Libre - Atterissage urgence - Atterrissage d'urgence pour un vol Béziers-Paris

From the short report on France 3 evening news, it looks like an emergency descent followed by a precautionary landing.

Cheers

[lomapaseo]

I was suprised not to see this news make it to this forum yet

Depends on what page of the news it was on.

If it's not Ryanair or linked somehow to the aviation news du jour it gets passed over

[alainthailande]

Bear with me, I'm just a frequent flyer. Would anyone care to explain how big an issue a lighting strike usually is to a modern airliner ? Passengers reports on this case suggest that this has caused depressurization. Is this a frequent occurence ? due to what ?

[llondel]

Statistically, commercial aircraft take a strike and a half every year,so I guess it's not generally a big issue.

[CJ Driver]

Aircraft are designed so that a lightning strike is not catastrophic, but it would be prohibitively expensive to arrange that they are completely unaffected. When the strike current flows through the airframe it typically makes some interesting voltage surges in nearby wiring, and any directly attached bit of kit may be affected. It is not unusual for bits of electronics to be confused or damaged as a result. Since this incident seems to have resulted in the cabin climbing such that the crew decided to descend, it sounds like something in the pressurisation controller (or the data that drives it) got zapped.

[AviatorAtHeart]

alainthailande,

Here is a video of an airliner + lighting. (this was posted here before I believe)

YouTube - Lightning strikes Qantas airplane

[Zulu01]

Been hit once in my own plane (glider) and at least twice that I remember in big commercial planes , each time it was a non event other than power resets.

Sounds like time something electronic fried

[rcl7700]

Got hit once in an RJ. It hit us right above the radome. Exit points were both wingtips, one winglet static wick, and the VHF2 antenna. Other than having to fix the exit holes on the wingtips, static wicks, and replacing the VHF2 antenna nothing else happened. I was told a couple of days later that the aircraft was broadcasting over the PA everything that was being said over our COM2, so there were some secondary problems but nothing dangerous or complicated. I didn't even think we had been struck, I just thought it was a close call. There were zero anomalies with the aircraft after the strike. I think bad ground AC power has a worse effect on the RJ than lightning strikes.

rcl

[lazycat]

I remember the plane i was on being hit by lightening on it's final approach into BHX from CDG. It was an Avro jet 146 and it was only the 2nd time i'd flown. As we were passing through clouds at what must have been a few thousand feet there was a loud thump and it felt like the aircraft had been hit by a large sledgehammer towards the front left hand side, like being inside a metal oil drum and it being given a wallop i suppose. I actually didn't feel worried at all as we just continued and landed normally. However, on landing they couldn't get the front exit open for what seemed a long time and on exiting i did notice a black mark right next to the door being examined by ground crew?

Just to add iv'e flown with airlinair a few times but only on the 42s