Plane urgently diverts after being struck by lightning near Heathrow Airport
A British Airways flight has been forced to divert after being struck by lighting on its way to Heathrow Airport.
BA Flight 919 from Stuttgart, Germany, was scheduled to arrive at Heathrow at 1.40pm today.
Just as it came in for landing, lightning appears to have struck the tip of it wing, forcing it to divert to Gatwick, some 25 miles away.
Passenger Jeco, who shared an image of the lightning bolt on X, said: ‘The crew were amazing when our flight got struck by lightning on the approach to Heathrow.
‘It was shocking. The flight had to divert to Gatwick.’
A British Airways spokesperson said: ‘BA919 diverted to Gatwick earlier this afternoon due to weather related conditions in the region.
‘The flight landed just before 2pm. Customers were driven from Gatwick to Heathrow.’
A spokesperson for Heathrow Airport said the incident was a matter for the airline.
It appears it wasn’t the only lightning strike suffered by a plane arriving at Heathrow today.
Ben, a traveller on a separate unspecified flight, claimed their flight was also ‘struck by lightning on the approach into Heathrow‘.
Writing on X, they said: ‘It entered just underneath the flight deck and left the tail – we saw it shoot through the cabin.
‘I’d heard of lighting travelling through the cabin before but it was my first time seeing it in real life.’
However, unlike to the BA flight diverted to Gatwick, Ben’s flight was ‘unaffected’ and ‘continued its approach for an uneventful arrival’.
Commercial passenger planes are thought to be hit by lightning once or two each year, according to the USA’s National Weather Service.
In fact, they sometimes trigger lightning themselves when flying through heavily electrically charged clouds.
But they’re built to withstand such strikes by conducting the electricity through the plane.
The last commercial plane to crash as a result of a lightning strike was in 1967, when the contact blew up a fuel tank.
Planes are still required to undergo mandatory inspection for damage after a lightning strike, possibly causing costly delays and diversions.
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