Lighting blasts hole in passenger plane (lead)
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A flight en-route from Sydney to Santiago was reportedly struck by lightning last week, leaving a ‘dinner plate-sized’ hole in the aircraft’s nose, The Australian has reported. The Lan Chile flight was carrying almost 300 passengers as it approached Auckland, which was experiencing dramatic storms at the time. Despite the damage the aircraft was able to land safely. And those who think that lightning doesn’t strike twice in the aviation industry would be right; it strikes four times. Two Air New Zealand flights and an Aerolineas Argentinas plane were also damaged in the same 24-hour period as the Lan Chile incident. However there is no need for passengers to worry; most commercial airliners are struck by lightning at least once a year and are designed to withstand the effects. However it is unusual for four airliners to be struck in the same place on the same day, and even more unusual for lightning to punch through an aircraft’s chassis. On the day in question, New Zealand was hit by over 15,000 lightning strikes in 24 hours.
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