You're welcome Tom. Haven't chatted with you for a while..
Yeah, it was only well after the fact that we all realized how dumb it was to keep going in that hangar..not a good shelter against a twister. It had formed with virtually no warning though. I have since learned to trust my feelings and take shelter if I have any doubts.
Though here in So. Cali. it's earthquakes that are an issue.
The lightning incident was very scary...I was team leader on the End-of Runway (EOR) recovery crew..I was connected to the returning aircraft with a wired comm set as my crew safed up the A-10's gun and any unexpended ordinance. The usual afternoon monsoon storm had moved in, but a lot quicker than we had expected. We only had 8 aircraft to recover (four on the ground already parked and we were working them, and four in the air) and the tower instructed us to recover them ASAP, as they had detected no lightning within 3 miles. (3 miles was the limit, any flashes in that range and ALL ground work stopped.)
It was raining pretty hard at EOR, and we were on the next-to last of the birds on the ground. A tremendous boom, blinding flash and all three of us crew were knocked to the ground..and we all felt something, not like a regular electric shock but we all knew what had happened. The pilot of the plane I was connected to kept asking if we were o.k. I told him yes and had him key the radio so I could have a chat with the tower.
We sent the last plane of that group and the four that had just landed back to the ramp "hot".
The tower supervisor got called on the carpet and issued a letter of reprimand.
The base weather office determined that the lightning struck one of the landing system lights about a thousand or so yards from the ramp we were on.
So I think my crew and I had discovered what "step potential" can do. And we were darn lucky too.
