Meteorological Conditions Accompanying Aircraft-induced Lightning During Takeoff and Landing

Aircraft occasionally induce lightning during takeoff and landing when no other lightning is in the vicinity, while in other such events there may be frequent non-induced lightning nearby. These events can cause concern to passengers and pilots, although lightning protection is typically robust against this threat. Nevertheless, diversions and post-strike inspections result in financial impacts and passenger inconvenience. In a recent incident in the Canary Islands, ‘revolt and chaos among passengers’ resulted from delays and cancellations. Fifty or more such events have been examined in the U.S. and around the world from 2014 through 2024 as described in online news reports and other data sources. Not to be considered here are aircraft strikes that occur during level flight at typical cruising altitudes between ascent and descent. Some of the takeoff and landing events caused damage to the planes in flight. However, not included are events where lightning caused damage or injury on the ground.

Several parameters will be collected for each case. First, the nearest upper-air sounding will be examined at the time and altitude most relevant to flash initiation to consider locations of the freezing layer(s), inversion, wind speed and direction, and saturated layers that the aircraft encountered during takeoff or landing. Second, the location of the flash initiation will be searched for events from the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN), Global Lightning Dataset (GLD360) network, and Geostationary Lightning Mappers (GLMs) on the GOES satellites that will indicate how far the aircraft was located from the nearest flash not initiated by aircraft. Third, the horizontal excursion of the aircraft through these layers will be examined to identify whether the plane navigated from one vertical temperature and dew point distribution to another sounding situation during takeoff or landing.

Preliminary data show that such incidents occurred an average of eight times per year in both the U.S. and globally during the 2014-2024 period. The most annual events in our database were 26 such takeoff and landing cases in 2015, and the fewest was two events in 2021. Events were somewhat more frequent during takeoff than during landing. Cases involved temperatures somewhat above the freezing level, at the freezing level, or below freezing. Such instances imply that more than one form of water particles may be involved as the plane flies through layers around the charging layer vertically, horizontally, or sometimes both. Another five helicopter-induced lightning events are treated separately.