When Your Plane Gets Struck By Lightning

A plane getting struck by lightning caught on tape.  It’s a pretty crazy thing to watch.  But why isn’t everyone dead?  Popular Science has the answer:

But why doesn’t the gigantic amount of current, which is in the neighborhood of 20,000 amps for a typical lightning bolt, harm the passengers inside the aircraft? Because the hull of the plane forms a Faraday cage! A Faraday cage is a hollow shell made of conducting material. A strong electric field outside the cage will force the charge in the material of the cage to redistribute itself, but the interior space inside the cage remains uncharged.

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