Airliners.net

A lightning stroke on Bogota's airport yesterday damaging runway 13L (it created a hole on the asphalt) and landing lights. See link below (spanish only but has photos and a video). Numerous flights were diverted and / or delayed.

The runway has since reopened

http://www.eltiempo.com/bogota/cerrada- ... rado-79964

(scroll down on the link to see all photos)

I wonder how that could be prevented (I know of course of lightning rods, but don't know what is exactly needed to avoid lightning on an airport runway, or whether a lightning rod itswlf would be a hazard if too close to a runway). Luckily there was no airplane on the runway at that moment

Wow, I flew from Cancun to Bogota yesterday, given there were storms in Cancun and the terminal was actually flooding (horrid airport by the way, money money money, sums up Cancun and why I stayed elsewhere!) storms in Bogota, and this happened, I can't believe we actually arrived on time.

Bogota is pretty renowned for delays normally, no fault of its own, Colombia is about as bad as it gets meteorologically for aviation, few easy days for the pilots there. As a nervous flyer it's not a good idea to look at the satellite picture before taking off a lot of the time...

Setting aside the Strike vs Stroke argument (seriously, folks?) ...

Intense heat + concrete = bad bad news ... just ask anyone in Atlanta.

Lighting, to nobody's surprise, generates intense heat where it grounds out ... and when that surface is concrete, there's going to be damage. Not surprising at all when that contact point is on an airport runway, it's going to leave a mini crater behind.

litz wrote:

Setting aside the Strike vs Stroke argument (seriously, folks?) ...

Intense heat + concrete = bad bad news ... just ask anyone in Atlanta.

Lighting, to nobody's surprise, generates intense heat where it grounds out ... and when that surface is concrete, there's going to be damage. Not surprising at all when that contact point is on an airport runway, it's going to leave a mini crater behind.

quote="litz"]Setting aside the Strike vs Stroke argument (seriously, folks?) ..... tell that to b747400erf who initiated the discussion

From my part I won't comment more on this issue. Hope people found the photos and the problem interesting.

litz wrote:

Setting aside the Strike vs Stroke argument (seriously, folks?) ...

Intense heat + concrete = bad bad news ... just ask anyone in Atlanta.

Lighting, to nobody's surprise, generates intense heat where it grounds out ... and when that surface is concrete, there's going to be damage. Not surprising at all when that contact point is on an airport runway, it's going to leave a mini crater behind.

720B wrote:

A lightning stroke on Bogota's airport yesterday damaging runway 13L (it created a hole on the asphalt) and landing lights. See link below (spanish only but has photos and a video). Numerous flights were diverted and / or delayed.

The runway has since reopened

http://www.eltiempo.com/bogota/cerrada- ... rado-79964

(scroll down on the link to see all photos)

I wonder how that could be prevented (I know of course of lightning rods, but don't know what is exactly needed to avoid lightning on an airport runway, or whether a lightning rod itswlf would be a hazard if too close to a runway). Luckily there was no airplane on the runway at that moment

Airfield electrical conduit is usually overlaid with a counterpoise system that consists of grounding stakes and a copper wire that is meant to protect the circuits and equipment. From my understanding however, lightning protection systems in the immediate vicinity of reinforced concrete can still cause damage as an opposite charge is built up and released in the reinforcing steel, so it's hard to protect against strikes on vast expanses of pavement that aren't near a building or structure.

There was a lightning strike at FLL a couple of years ago that blew a hole in runway 10L/28R.

litz wrote:

Setting aside the Strike vs Stroke argument (seriously, folks?) ...

Intense heat + concrete = bad bad news ... just ask anyone in Atlanta.

Lighting, to nobody's surprise, generates intense heat where it grounds out ... and when that surface is concrete, there's going to be damage. Not surprising at all when that contact point is on an airport runway, it's going to leave a mini crater behind.

No argument, I could not figure out the reason for saying stroke twice. Also you cannot "prevent" lightning strikes you can only hope to divert them. And for obvious reasons you don't put a lot of large towers around an airfield. You can't make jokes on this site any more either.