Plane hit by lightning on Sumburgh approach

A LOGANAIR plane was struck by lightning on its approach to Sumburgh Airport on Monday evening and had to turn back to Aberdeen as a precaution.

A company spokesman 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.

“As is standard procedure when any Mayday call is initiated, the aircraft was met by the airport’s emergency crews as it landed safely,” the spokesman said.

“The aircraft was carrying three crew and 29 passengers, who were accommodated overnight and continued their journey this morning.”

Shetlander Shona Manson was on the flight and 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.

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“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.