Terror at 10,000ft as lightning strikes jet en route to Gatwick

Passengers on board the Continental Airlines Boeing 757 bound for Gatwick described a "huge explosion" shortly after taking off from Newark airport, just outside New York.

With memories still fresh of the Heathrow crash just three weeks ago, many began screaming as a burning smell began to fill the cabin.

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Emergency crews were on full standby as the jet, which had around 100 passengers on board, made a rapid descent from 10,000ft to land safely back at Newark.

Rachael Bamber, 23, who was travelling on the plane with her boyfriend Shane Hanlon, said: "About five minutes into the flight there was a huge explosion, a flash of white light outside and a loud bang inside.

"People started screaming. I thought: 'Oh my God, we are going to crash.' I screamed out for Shane, and he said we'd probably been struck by lightning.

"Some passengers said they could smell burning, and the girl behind us was in hysterics, screaming and praying and shouting: 'Get me off the plane! Get me off the plane!'

"A couple of minutes later the pilot announced we had been struck by lightning and that we were going back to make an emergency landing."

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Miss Bamber, 23, a radiographer at Great Western Hospital in Swindon, Wiltshire, and Mr Hanlon, 32, were returning home after a two-week trip to visit her brother Nick in New York and a great aunt in Florida.

She revealed that, although Flight 114 had taken off in torrential rain and thick cloud, "everything seemed fairly normal".

"After it happened, the pilot turned us round and we made a pretty rapid descent, landing less than four minutes later," Miss Bamber said.

"In the air, the pilot's announcement was, 'It appears that we may have been struck by lightning so we are just going to head back down and check the plane out'.

"When we got off the plane we saw a 2ft gash in the nose cone, a hole with metal ripped back. It was only then we realised the enormity of what had happened.

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"Afterwards, they gave us meal vouchers and I saw the pilot at a bar getting a coffee. I gave him a big hug and thanked him for getting us down safely.

"He said the crew had been completely blinded for about three seconds. It had never happened to him before but he said it does happen to planes sometimes. I'm just so glad our pilots and crew were so professional."

A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs Newark airport, said no injuries had been reported.

A spokesman for Continental Airlines said: "We have had a few calls about this."

Last night, experts insisted that all commercial planes are rigorously tested to ensure they are safe in different weather conditions, including lightning.

They claim the key to a plane's protection is its aluminium skin, which conducts the charge along the aircraft's body to its tail, where it exits.

Because most strikes usually hit a plane's extremities - its wing tips, nose, fin or tailplane tips - passengers rarely notice, although they often report a flash or jolt afterwards.

However, lightning can prove problematic because it affects onboard computers and flight instruments, especially the radar, which is located in the fibre-glass nose at the front of the plane.

For this reason, all vital electrical components are protected by electrical shielding and surge suppressors.

In 2005, another Boeing 757 was battered by hailstones the size of golf balls at 5,000ft as it took off from Palma, Majorca, en route to Gatwick.

Its fibreglass nosecone and wings were damaged, the first officer's window shattered and cockpit windows scratched.

However, the pilot was able to fly the jet through the storm.