A SriLankan Airlines flight bound for Sydney was forced to return to Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) early Friday after the aircraft was struck by lightning shortly after departure, with no injuries to the 217 passengers and 16 crew on board, Ada Derana reported.
Flight UL-606, an Airbus A330 wide-body, departed Katunayake Airport at approximately 1:00 a.m. on June 12. Adverse weather accompanied by lightning was reported in the area at the time of takeoff, and the pilot decided as a precaution to abort the flight and return to BIA, landing safely at around 1:40 a.m., the airport duty officer told Ada Derana.
SriLankan Airlines arranged a second Airbus A330 of the same type to operate the replacement service. That aircraft departed Katunayake at approximately 6:06 a.m. on June 12, bringing the total delay to more than five hours, according to Newswire.
A SriLankan Airlines spokesperson confirmed that no passengers were injured and that the aircraft itself sustained no damage, Newswire reported. The carrier said the lightning struck one of the aircraft’s engines shortly after departure. The affected airframe has been moved to the SriLankan Airlines hangar at Katunayake for inspection and repairs.
Lightning strikes on commercial aircraft are routine and rarely cause structural damage thanks to bonded conductive paths in modern airframes, but operators typically pull aircraft out of service for inspections after any confirmed strike. The June 12 incident comes a day after Deputy Aviation Minister Prasanna Gunasena told Parliament that BIA is not scheduled to receive a second runway until 2055 under the airport’s current master plan.
