plane lightning
© Sam Van Tilburgh/Twitter
The dramatic moment a passenger plane was apparently hit by lightning near Heathrow Airport has been caught on camera.

The jet, flying from Reykjavik in Iceland, was struck during a storm over London on Wednesday evening.

A video taken by Kevin McArdle in Parsons Green, west London, showed the plane in the middle of the picture.

It was flying below a large dark cloud before a lightning bolt appeared, followed by a rumble of thunder a couple of seconds later.

A passenger said the incident was "shocking but not frightening" as it all happened very fast.


Catherine Mayer, who was on the Icelandair flight, described flying into a huge wall of cloud as the plane got ready to land at Heathrow airport at 8.10pm

She said: "As we flew into it there was this extraordinarily loud noise like an explosion and a lot of light.

"The moment of the strike there was a jolt, and it was very loud and very bright."

After they landed, the captain explained what had happened to the tense passengers.

Ms Mayer said: "The captain said, 'you may have noticed a lightning strike', and everybody just laughed because the idea that anybody could not have noticed it was so ridiculous.

"It was shocking but not frightening because it was way too fast to have one's whole life flash before one's eyes or anything like that."