News / Plane struck by ‘almighty bang’
A SHETLAND woman has described how a Loganair plane was struck by lightning on its approach to Sumburgh Airport on Monday evening.
The Saab aircraft, with 29 passengers and three crew on board, had to return to Aberdeen where it was met by the airport’s emergency crew after landing safely.
Returning from a holiday, Shona Manson said it was only after they landed in Aberdeen and the captain, looking a little shaken, came out of the cockpit to speak to passengers that she realised how potentially serious the incident could have been.
“I’m not a scared flyer, but it was really, really bumpy,” she said. “If it was someone who’s a bad flyer, it’d be their worst nightmare.
“We were on descent and I said to my partner, we’re going back up again, and just as we started to go up again there was an almighty bang and a flash that went over the left wing.
“Then we were really ascending, and at that point there were a few folk looking around going ‘oh my God, what’s happening?’
“The poor guy across the isle from me just had eyes like rabbits in headlights.”
She added that one Glaswegian man, who was heading up to work in Shetland for a week, was so shaken that he decided he wasn’t getting back on the plane the next day and headed home instead.
A spokesman for Loganair said the captain of flight BE6780 decided to return to Aberdeen and a precautionary Mayday call was made at around 7pm.
The flight had departed at 6.20pm and returned to Aberdeen at 8pm. Passengers were put up in a hotel overnight and continued their journey the following morning.
Another passenger travelling home on the flight, Sanna Aitken, said: “I thought I’d be pretty calm in such a situation but I was probably least calm out of everyone!”
She said the flight had gone smoothly until the lightning struck, which “I thought was an engine bursting because I hadn’t seen any lightning out the window prior to this”.
“I was looking out to see if I could see any fire, but thankfully there didn’t seem to be anything alight and we seemed to have two wings and power – which was a positive!
“However there was a lot of turbulence after the bang including quite a big drop, so I knew something still wasn’t right. One poor man behind me was using up a pile of sick bags, but I was hanging on to my neighbour’s arm – poor woman – literally praying that everything was okay.
“The plane was really quiet, nobody was shouting or screaming, or even speaking at all. It was all a bit surreal.”
Aitken said the captain was “very reassuring” when he came on around 15 minutes later, while the air hostess was “great, as she came down the aisle at that point and spoke to us all individually asking if we needed anything”.
She added: “The flight by that point seemed to be back under control so I just breathed deeply until we landed – then I let out a big sigh and burst out crying. It was pretty terrifying. It seems a bit dramatic, but a lot of things run through your head.
“I can’t say I enjoyed any moment of my flight up this morning. But as they say… lightning never strikes twice (touch wood)!”
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