Air France flight disappears

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-happens-when-lightni

 

Not looking very good considering there appears to be little knowledge of exactly where to search and this happened in the middle of the night.

 

And apparently in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

 

It was close enough to the Brazilian coast that they have a general idea of where contact was lost. Plus, transatlantic flights are tracked by satellites. They'll find a debris field and figure out what the hell happened.

 

That's most likely what it was, if there was no communication and no GPS signal. Total electrical failure of all electrical systems, to include backup generators, is a likely result.

 

I'm surprised the GPS is not fed off of a battery that is not tied to the electrical system of the plane and grounded enough to survive a lightning strike.

And almost eight years after 9/11, there is no way I am not buying that our military does not know where every, and I mean every, aircraft is at all times on this globe.

 

An aircraft in flight is by its very definition not grounded. So I'm trying to figure out how a lightning strike can cause any damage.

 

Huh? Too many double negatives in there for me to follow. Maybe I'm dumb.

 

From my limited understanding of electricity, grounded is moving the electrical current into a larger object (like the ground of the Earth) so it becomes harmless.

Some deeper reading...

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/eng99/eng99304.htm

 

my wife's aunt and uncle left Boston this morning on an Air France flight to Paris......I hope they didn't hear about this before they boarded the flight.

 

Cleaned up a little bit.