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This Footage Of A Plane Getting Struck By A Massive Lightning Bolt In Iceland Is Unsettling

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Footage of a fat lightning bolt drilling an Icelandic commercial plane as it was departing from Keflavík International Airport is starting to make the rounds on the world wide web today.

The low-flying plane escaped unharmed, as commercial aircrafts are equipped with lightning protection engineered into the aircraft, but the footage is still a bit unnerving.

These incidents aren’t all that uncommon, as Scientific American estimates that on average, each airplane in the U.S. commercial fleet is struck lightly by lightning more than once each year. The last confirmed commercial plane crash in the U.S. directly attributed to lightning occurred in 1967, when lightning caused a catastrophic fuel tank explosion.

Regardless, I’ll take the bus.

[h/t FTW]

Matt Keohan Avatar
Matt’s love of writing was born during a sixth grade assembly when it was announced that his essay titled “Why Drugs Are Bad” had taken first prize in D.A.R.E.’s grade-wide contest. The anti-drug people gave him a $50 savings bond for his brave contribution to crime-fighting, and upon the bond’s maturity 10 years later, he used it to buy his very first bag of marijuana.
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