Terror As Plane Damaged By Lightning

After the recent near miraculous escape at Heathrow Airport when passengers and crew survived a catastrophic crash landing short of the runway, British holidaymakers have revealed their terror after their plane was forced to make an emergency landing in the USA when it was struck by lightning on Sunday night.

Passengers on board the Continental Airlines Boeing 757 bound this time for Gatwick described a "huge explosion" shortly after taking off from Newark airport, just outside New York.

With memories still fresh of the Heathrow crash just three weeks ago, many began screaming as a burning smell began to fill the cabin.

Emergency crews were on full standby as the jet, which had around 100 passengers on board, made a rapid descent from 10,000ft to land safely back at Newark.

Rachael Bamber, 23, who was travelling on the plane with her boyfriend Shane Hanlon, said: "About five minutes into the flight there was a huge explosion, a flash of white light outside and a loud bang inside.

"People started screaming. I thought: 'Oh my God, we are going to crash.' I screamed out for Shane, and he said we'd probably been struck by lightning.

"Some passengers said they could smell burning, and the girl behind us was in hysterics, screaming and praying and shouting: 'Get me off the plane! Get me off the plane!'

"A couple of minutes later the pilot announced we had been struck by lightning and that we were going back to make an emergency landing."

Radiographer Rachael Bamber, 23, from Swinton, Wiltshire, and boyfriend Shane Hanlon, 32, were aboard the plane when it was struck

Miss Bamber, 23, a radiographer at Great Western Hospital in Swindon, Wiltshire, and Mr Hanlon, 32, were returning home after a two-week trip to visit her brother Nick in New York and a great aunt in Florida.

She revealed that, although Flight 114 had taken off in torrential rain and thick cloud, "everything seemed fairly normal".

"After it happened, the pilot turned us round and we made a pretty rapid descent, landing less than four minutes later," Miss Bamber said.

"In the air, the pilot's announcement was, 'It appears that we may have been struck by lightning so we are just going to head back down and check the plane out'.

"When we got off the plane we saw a 2ft gash in the nose cone, a hole with metal ripped back. It was only then we realised the enormity of what had happened.

A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs Newark airport, said no injuries had been reported.

(BMcC)