Trip Reports - Scaramouch, scaramouch will you do the fandango?

After an uneventful Transatlantic flight on British Airways I made my way from terminal 4 to terminal 3 at London Heathrow. I was booked on an SAS flight to Copenhagen with a scheduled departure time of 6:45 pm which gave me a layover of almost 4 hours. As it turned out the layover ended up being almost 5 hours due to the late arrival of the SAS MD-90.

Boarding wasn't out of the ordinary and the load seemed to be about 50%. I was seated in the economy cabin two rows behind Business class. On most of SAS's European flights there is no difference between the Business and economy class seats, although the food up front is slightly better. Behind the curtain we were offered a plate of cold cuts (salami, Parma ham and some kind of mystery meat) and potato- and squash salad. Dessert was a miniature piece of Toblerone chocolate. The food was good and the service from the Swedish crew was fine.

The descent into Copenhagen was very turbulent. It had been an extremely (by Northern European standards) hot day and there were thunderstorms in the area. I usually don't mind turbulence and sleep much better on a plane when there is a little chop, but this was getting ridiculous. Fortunately the remnants of the meal had already been picked up, otherwise we would have had quite a few service items flying through the cabin.

About 10 minutes from landing the plane dropped into an air pocket and was rocked by a loud bang. An orange flash like an explosion enveloped the plane and then the lights went out for few seconds. There were a couple of screams but overall everybody stayed very quiet. People were looking at each other wondering what to expect next.

The turbulence continued through our descent and the mood on the plane was very somber. We were waiting for a sign from the cockpit, or even the cabin crew, letting us know that everything was ok with an explanation of what happened. It never came but a few minutes later we touched down at Copenhagen Kastrup and a common sigh of relief could be heard throughout the plane.

As we were taxiing towards the terminal the captain finally came on the PA. He explained that we had been hit by lightning and that, while not a common occurrence, it happens once in a while. The plane was fine but he had decided that a lightning strike wasn't something he wanted to tell his passengers about until we were safely on the ground.

I've never been hit by lightning before and hope it never happens again. If it does happen, however, I hope the crew will take a couple of seconds to let the passengers know that everything is ok. I understand that they must have had come tense moments in the cockpit but even having the purser say "we're fine" or whatever, would have been better than the deafening silence that we were subjected to.

They say that lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place so I expect I'm a very safe travel companion from now on. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

...very very frightening indeed! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif renalt130, what a fascinating story - thanks for sharing it with us.

I believe that the reason there was no announcement from the cockpit is that below a certain altitude (10K feet I believe) they have something called a 'sterile cockpit environment' which means no idle chatter, announcements or crew communications except for essential comms. This would be especially true in the environment you mention where the crew would have a very high workload and have their hands full flying the aircraft safely. They do not even talk to the FA's unless, like I said, there is a true emergency, so the FA's were as clueless as you in this case http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

When something strange happens on a flight, I am usually relieved if there is no announcement, since it means that everything is under control, and there is no need to immediately inform passengers.

[This message has been edited by newbie elite (edited 07-17-2002).]

Understandably upsetting, and of course we're all pleased that you landed safely.

For the most part when something unusual happens, pilots follow the rule of "aviate, navigate, communicate" -- that is, first concentrate on keeping the plane flying, next concern yourself with going in an appropriate direction (for example, not into the side of a mountain), and only after all that is taken care of, let people outside the cockpit (both passengers and air traffic control) know what's going on.

I had this happen aboard a Continental 757 on climbout from Seattle around midnight one night a few years ago... we were clearing the remains of some thunderheads when there was an ungodly BANG! and the whole aircraft vibrated, nose to tail. I really thought the number-one engine had exploded.

As in your case, the cabin was dead quiet. But differently, the flight crew was on the PA within 60 seconds to confirm that we'd been hit by lightning. We circled for about 15 minutes while the crew talked to Dispatch about the health of the plane, then flew on to EWR.

I really hope it never happens to me again.

Yup.. Had the same thing happen to me on a LHR/BRU flight on an airbus, now I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure that we rapidly decended to 18k feet and it was a good 15 mins before the pilot communicated that it was in fact a strike..

I guess that they were busy checking to see if they still had engines wings and wheels.. I can forgive them that..

Kinda intresting to listen to things.

1. DEAD silence
2. Mumbling and confusion
3. Lots of people asking each other dumb questions

My worst LANDING was at LGA from ORD, it was a really bad storm with strong crosswinds that kept dying off intermittently.. I SWEAR that the wing touched the ground before the wheels.. I just can't *PROVE* it..

Wow... quite an experience.

I'd agree that the cockpit crew should concentrate on flying the plane, especially since they are on landing approach. The purser (or any other FA) couldn't have known what to tell the passengers unless the pilot informed them, which again isn't what I want them to be doing after a lightning strike on approach.

BearX220's experience was slightly different in that they got the lightning strike on takeoff, not landing.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Brian-AAFlyer:
My worst LANDING was at LGA from ORD, it was a really bad storm with strong crosswinds that kept dying off intermittently.. I SWEAR that the wing touched the ground before the wheels.. I just can't *PROVE* it..</font>

I heard that this *almost* happened in LAS during that big sandstorm on April 15th.

This was from the SJC ground staff, but apparently the windstorm was very shifty and all the sand in the air made visibility horrible. Something like 40+ knots of wind near ground level. The last flight which was allowed to land caught a gust on final approach and the wingtip came this close (picture fingers about 1 mm apart) to scraping the runway. With the kind of wind conditions, the aircraft might have slipped on its side if the wing touched.

After that, LAS was closed for ~4 hours.

Windy approaches/landings are always exciting, for aviation enthusiasts like me (and I am sure many others in a board like ours!). For those who have not already seen them, here are some of the numerous videoclips available around the net, showing some interesting windy approaches/landings:

&lt;IMG SRC="http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starsmilie.gif"&gt; One of the most circulated clips is this one of a KAL Cargo 747 landing (http://home1.gte.net/lbalders/hkg_land.mpg) in the infamous old Hong Kong airport (mpeg, ~900 Kb), correcting its approach at the very last moment, almost scraping its left engines.

&lt;IMG SRC="http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starsmilie.gif"&gt; Another one from HKG, this Alitalia MD-11 (http://www.avpics.de/mov/civ/alitalia.rm) barely makes it onto the runway (realvideo, ~600 Kb).

&lt;IMG SRC="http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starsmilie.gif"&gt; Remember the horrible weather with gale force winds in early February in England? The TV news bulletins there showed many interesting landings or near landings. Here is a clip from the BBC, containing a private jet almost crashing (http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1795000/video/_1796668_weather18_marston_vi.ram) in Leeds Bradford (LBA) (streaming real).

&lt;IMG SRC="http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starsmilie.gif"&gt; The airport of Wellington, New Zealand (WLG) is famous for its windy conditions. Airsidetv has many clips from there, including this one of a RNZAF B727 (http://airside.paradise.net.nz/video/RNZAFB727gusty.wmv) almost scraping its left wing while landing (wmv, ~1.55 Mb) and, best of all, a collection of several approaches/landings (and a few takeoffs) in this awesome video clip (http://airside.paradise.net.nz/video/CrashBangatWGTN.wmv) (wmv, ~2.4 Mb).

Enjoy! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by SK (edited 07-23-2002).]

SK, thanks for the great links! I love flying into Wellington (WLG, by the way) for the great views, but I have certainly had some pretty hairy landings there on large and small planes. Anyway, great to see what they look like from the outside!

One incident I remember hearing about back in '98 was an Air Pacific 737 from Suva landing in Wellington during very extreme weather (I think ATC had advised the pilot against landing, but he did anyway) and only *very* narrowly avoided scraping its wing. There was apparently very spectacular footage of it on the evening news - sadly I never got to see it. As I was in Fiji at the time, and about to board an Air Pacific flight myself, perhaps that was no bad thing... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Thanks mad_atta, I corrected it!

Renalt, a completely off topic comment... I HATE you for using this topic title. I've had Bohemian Rhapsody running through my head for three days now thanks to you... great post though. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

I totally agree that the pilots should be concentrating on flying the plane. My point was that the pilot made it sound as if he had made a conscious decision not to talk about the problem until after we landed. Had he told us that they were busy up front I probably wouldn't have given this a second thought, but telling us that he "didn't want to talk about it while in the air" made me think that he actually did have the time to talk to us if he had wanted to.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by kanebear:
Renalt, a completely off topic comment... I HATE you for using this topic title. I've had Bohemian Rhapsody running through my head for three days now thanks to you... great post though. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif</font>

Mr Meatman,

I'll give you a reason to really really hate me:


It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small small world!

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by renalt130:
Mr Meatman,

I'll give you a reason to really really hate me:


It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small small world!

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

</font>

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhh! That one was below the belt... consider the lives of us innocent bystanders! I've only just managed to get that out of my head after my last Disney visit... which was over a year ago... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eek.gif