ATLANTA, Aug. 21 (Ben Hooper) — A man shooting video of a line of planes waiting to take off during a storm in Atlanta captured the moment a bolt of lightning struck a Delta plane.
Jack Perkins posted a video to YouTube showing the view from his plane window as a line of planes waited to take off during weather-related ground hold at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport Tuesday.
The video shows lightning strike a Delta 737 near the base of its tail.
Delta spokesman Morgan Durrant confirmed lightning struck Delta Flight 67 while it was waiting to take off for a flight to Las Vegas. There were no injuries among the 111 passengers and six crew, and the flight took off about two hours behind schedule. The plane landed safely in Las Vegas.
“As with any event involving aircraft, Delta is doing a thorough investigation of the circumstances around this flight as safety is always Delta’s top priority,” Durrant wrote in an email to CNN.
“Aircraft design allows lightning bolts to be safely redirected,” Durrant wrote. “Fuselage structure and industrial-grade insulation acts as [a] super-conductive lightning rod that rechannels lightning around and away from customers and crew and out into the ground via the landing gear.”
