Welcome Guest. Sign in or Signup

1 Answers

What happens if lightning hits a GA airplane?

Asked by: 5204 views General Aviation, Weather

Ace Any FAA Written Test!
Actual FAA Questions / Free Lifetime Updates
The best explanations in the business
Fast, efficient study.
Pass Your Checkride With Confidence!
FAA Practical Test prep that reflects actual checkrides.
Any checkride: Airplane, Helicopter, Glider, etc.
Written and maintained by actual pilot examiners and master CFIs.
The World's Most Trusted eLogbook
Be Organized, Current, Professional, and Safe.
Highly customizable - for student pilots through pros.
Free Transition Service for users of other eLogs.
Our sincere thanks to pilots such as yourself who support AskACFI while helping themselves by using the awesome PC, Mac, iPhone/iPad, and Android aviation apps of our sponsors.

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer


    Spencerstrubs on Mar 09, 2016

    There are many different outcomes to this. First off, if this happens to you while flying, the first thing to be aware of is that you should no longer trust your instruments (especially if flying “glass”), until it has been confirmed that they have not been affected by the strike. Next, if you are still flying and everything seems to be fine, great! However, be aware that possible structural damage may have occurred. If you look in the Abnormal Operations portion of your POH/PIM, you may very well find a section on lightning strikes. It will say this very thing “structural damage may have occurred”. Therefore, they recommend that you avoid making abrupt or full deflection inputs to the controls. I have only seen this in the Diamond Aircraft (DA42 L360) POH so far, but I’m sure it’s in others as well. One last thing, if you see lighting ahead, don’t go towards it, stay as far away as possible from it! I usually use the general rule of staying 10 Nautical miles from the thunderstorm, but I’v seen it written that 5NM may be acceptable for aircraft at lower altitudes. Also, the “sweet spot: for lightning to hit aircraft is when the outside air temperature is -5 degrees celsius to +5 degrees Celsius, so be aware of the OAT!

    +1 Votes Thumb up 1 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes


Answer Question

Our sincere thanks to all who contribute constructively to this forum in answering flight training questions. If you are a flight instructor or represent a flight school / FBO offering flight instruction, you are welcome to include links to your site and related contact information as it pertains to offering local flight instruction in a specific geographic area. Additionally, direct links to FAA and related official government sources of information are welcome. However we thank you for your understanding that links to other sites or text that may be construed as explicit or implicit advertising of other business, sites, or goods/services are not permitted even if such links nominally are relevant to the question asked.