The rain would not let up Tuesday, and Delta Air Lines flight No. 67 did not have clearance to depart Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Jack Perkins, who was “filming the line of planes all stacked up during a ground hold,” turned on his camera.
About 17 seconds into the recording, a bolt of lightning struck the Boeing 737-900ER.
Perkins, who was not on the affected aircraft, uploaded the frightening moment on YouTube — a moment that had been viewed more than 36,000 times by Thursday afternoon.
(See video of the lightning strike here.)
About 111 customers and six crew members were on the flight at the time of the lightning strike, Delta spokesman Morgan Durrant said in an emailed statement. No one was injured, he said.
“Aircraft design allows lightning bolts to be safely redirected,” Durrant said. “Fuselage structure and industrial-grade insulation acts as [a] super-conductive lightning rod that rechannels lightning around and away from customers and crew and out into the ground via the landing gear.”
Still, Delta is investigating “the circumstances around this flight,” he said.
The aircraft made it to its final destination: Las Vegas.
