Inclement Weather Sparks Emergency Landing in India
GoAir Flight 102 was damaged when it flew directly into a pocket of lightning on 9 July 2016. The plane was flying from Kolkata to Delhi with 180 passengers on board when a lightning strike cracked its windshield a half hour from Indira Gandhi International Airport. The below video shows the path of the flight as it flew through the storms.
You can see in the video above where the flight seems to be in distress. At about 10:20 UTC the plane veers westward and lands about a half hour later at IGIA. The plane landed safely at 4:33pm local time; an hour after lightning damaged the windshield. There were no injuries during the landing and the aircraft was repaired and made operational by the next morning.
The video above shows the storm’s total lightning strikes as detected by Earth Networks. The system generated approximately 29,533 lightning strikes in the areas of New Delhi, Kolkata and the space in-between during a 12-hour period.
The photo above shows the plane’s damage after it landed in Delhi. While the official damage report cites lightning as the cause, many people believe hail was the cause of the damage shown in the photo above.