Commercial airplanes are struck by lightning approximately once a year, yet they have not crashed from a strike since 1967 due to some remarkably clever engineering.

A closer look

Commercial airplanes are struck by lightning approximately once a year, yet they have not crashed from a strike since 1967 due to some remarkably clever engineering. Modern aircraft are basically giant flying Faraday cages made of conductive materials that allow a billion volts of electricity to pass seamlessly from the nose through the wings and out the tail. The passengers sitting inside drinking overpriced tomato juice rarely even notice the strike, besides a bright flash and a loud boom that they probably mistake for turbulence or a crying toddler. This means you are statistically safer flying through a literal thunderstorm in a pressurized aluminum tube than you are playing golf in a light drizzle. It is strangely comforting to know that aviation engineers solved the wrath of Zeus decades ago, even if they still cannot figure out how to give us more than two inches of legroom