New York – An American Eagle flight from Detroit has landed safely at New York’s LaGuardia Airport after being struck by lightning.
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American Airlines spokesman Matt Miller says American Eagle Flight 4563 was struck twice by lightning as it approached New York on Wednesday morning.
Miller says the captain declared an emergency as a precaution. The plane landed safely at 10:41 a.m.
The spokesman says a maintenance team is inspecting the aircraft. It was an Embraer 135 with 20 passengers and three crew members.
Planes are hit by lightning all the time. Once a year *per plane* on average. How is this news?
This happens because lightning doesn’t necessarily strike where the storm is. I was on a flight into IAD and we were struck by lightning despite no storm cell “nearby.” Yes, it scared the living daylights out of everyone on the flight but it was BH relatively harmless.
wait, I thought lightening doesn’t hit the same place twice? How did that happen?
Happened to me landing in Rome. Things were eerily quiet for a few seconds. The pilots must have been busy because they said nothing till we were on the ground.
Lightning doesn’t bother me, as much as bird strikes, which have been known to disable, and bring down commercial aircraft. We can’t control lightning, but we can control bird populations (especially Canadian Geese), near airports. Of course, there are those who will recriminate against killing those poor creatures! They would rather the lives of the birds are spared, and could care less, if a disaster results, because of those birds.