Increasing lighting strikes from stronger storms could cripple airports and airbases
NEW YORK - While flying planes are hardened to withstand lightning strikes, airports are typically a cluster of free-standing structures on a flat, open plot of land. The ongoing increase in lightning strikes caused by climate change is a direct danger to facilities and people on the ground. The adage that “lightning never strikes the same place twice” isn’t true, and I’d never want to stand out on the tarmac during a thunderstorm to prove it, Ryan Erik King writes for Jalopnik. Continue reading original article.
The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:
12 September 2024 - King writes that "A 2022 study found that 98 ground crewmembers were killed or injured by lightning between 1998 and 2020. These dangers extend past the people spending nearly their entire shift in the open. The study recounted a 2013 incident in which the air traffic control tower at Baltimore Washington International Airport was struck by lightning. The strike injured a controller because one cable designed to take electrical current from a lightning strike to the ground was cut."
Related: NASA asks industry to review and comment on lightning mapper instrument implementation
Jamie Whitney, Senior Editor
Military + Aerospace Electronics
