My scariest movement - plane struck by lightning

Approach, March, 2002 by Andy Bordick

I used to tell people the scariest things I've ever done were night traps in the Tomcat. I can't say that anymore.

My T-45 student (callsign Flash) and I were "stuck" in Key West. We were supposed to swap a good jet for a high-time, jet and do student airnav training en route, A low-pressure system was sitting over southern Florida, and the weather delayed our departure for two days. Although upset, we Sucked it up for the team. You know how bad Key West can be.

On Monday morning our wallets were thinning and the weather appeared to lighten up. A sigmet was building on the west coast of southern Florida, so we planned to skirt it to the east. Just as we were about to file, the area the sigmet covered increased, but our route still look us to the east of it.

We launched and went IMC at about 10,000 feet. We were climbing through the 20s when Miami Center asked us about our route. We said we wanted to avoid the weather (big, ugly sigmet ... duh). The controller told us he had a "hole" that was more direct to our destination. with a couple of reports of a smooth ride at FL370. Flash might benefit from some route changes. We actually broke out in a little hole while transiting the high 20s. This would be the last time we would be VMC for a while.

We were in a steady, albeit slow, MRT climb, passing FL380 for FL390. The clouds were thinning; in fact, we thought we would break out when we leveled off. We were in smooth air and climbed at a fuel flow of around 1,300 pph.

A lightning bolt came from the right but didn't appear all that powerful. It struck the bottom of the aircraft forward of the wings. We heard a slight ding, like someone had hit us with a pebble or small rock, then the engine spooled down.

The rpm and EGT were in a steady decline, while the fuel flow was reading somewhere around 4,500 pph. Numerous warning and caution lights began to illuminate (all those that would come on during a normal shutdown). I look the controls and pushed the nose a little bit, so we wouldn't get too slow. I declared an emergency, while dialing in 7700 because I knew we would be crossing a few flight levels we weren't cleared to cross. I began an immediate airstart, which consists of securing the throttle, pushing the GTS (APU) start button on the throttle, and bringing it back to idle. Center was quiet as we starting descending, which was a good thing because, suddenly, I couldn't breathe. I had been used to flying with LOX, so it didn't hit me that I needed to circumvent the OBOGS system with that green apple. Well, that was no easy task as the loop was hiding under my left thigh. At the same time I pulled it, our cabin pressure was indicating over 25,000 feet, so taking the mask off was not an option unless we wanted to go immediately hypoxic. I started breathing just as Flash confirmed we had both pulled the ring. We then noticed the EGT was spiking. I secured the throttle and was watching the airspeed increase to nearly 300 knots. Did I mention we were still IMC?

Having been distracted by those other duties, I just tried to pull a little. It didn't help. I looked at my standby gyro, and it showed a slight wing down, so I leveled the wings and pulled, still accelerating. Flash then said I was left-wing down and severe-nose down. I pulled harder to no avail. Finally, he said, "Cosmo, you are 60-degrees left-wing down and 30-degrees nose low." Well, my gyro showed level wings and 20-degrees nose up. So I (yikes!) gave my student the controls. By the way, the main attitude indicator was inoperative on the batteries. We were single-radio, pitot-static and (single) standby-gyro glider guys.

Flash astutely leveled the wings and started to break our rate of descent. I tried another immediate airstart, hoping the 330 knots indicated would help the motor. No joy. The engine was hitting its airstart limit of 600 degrees at 18 percent rpm. There is a caveat that we get 10 seconds at temperatures up to 650 degrees, but it didn't appear we would hit idle rpm in that time. Did I mention we were still IMC?

We checked the wet compass, and it showed a westerly heading. I checked the Garmin handheld GPS on my knee, and it was tracking the same, around 290 degrees. I hooked the nearest field, which was Southwest Florida International Airport in Ft. Myers. It has a hard surface of greater than 5,000 feet, so we put it on the nose.

We told Center we were heading direct. They came back with questions like, "Understand you lost your No. 1 engine?"

To which we responded with a snappy, "Uh ... we lost our only engine."

This prompted an immediate, "Standby" call that momentarily silenced him. With a steer from the GPS, we proceeded north to Ft. Myers. Flash was doing his best to keep us gliding and heading the way we wanted to go. Although I had a good heading to get to the airfield, he had only a wobbly wet compass to follow, so I gave him some, "Come left or right" calls. He was keeping the speed around 230 knots, looking to intercept around 200 to max our glide.