For airports and the airlines that serve them, few weather phenomena are as disruptive as electrical storms. Tom Batchelor looks at the risks and the remedies
From structural damage to disabled onboard electrical systems and the threat of injury or death to those on the ground, a lightning strike can be dangerous and costly. And with more than two billion bolts detected worldwide in any given year, it is a risk factor that the aviationindustry cannot avoid. Indeed, with climate change becoming an ever more pressing problem, the challenges posed by lightning and the severe weather that accompanies it are only likely to worsen.
Vast sums of money continue to be spent adapting infrastructure to help withstand electrostatic pulses, and to predict when the next big storm will hit.
