Thunderstorm Encounter

Stephen Pope

Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 09:14 PM ET

Verified

While you never want to find yourself in a
thunderstorm, here's what to do to get out of
one alive.

Key Takeaways:

A student pilot narrowly survived flying into a severe thunderstorm during a solo cross-country flight, experiencing extreme turbulence, lightning, and downdrafts that almost led to a crash due to poor visibility and lack of onboard weather tools.
The paramount lesson is to avoid thunderstorms entirely, maintaining a safe distance of at least 20 miles, as survival chances are slim once inside.
If inadvertently caught in a storm, pilots should focus on instruments, select a reduced airspeed power setting, maintain a constant aircraft attitude without trying to hold altitude, and fly a straight course through the storm rather than attempting turns to minimize time inside.

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A fellow pilot recently recounted the harrowing tale of one of his early solo cross-country flights as a student pilot that inadvertently put him where no pilot wants to be: inside the bowels of a thunderstorm.

According to the pilot, the summer haze along his route had cut the visibility to less than five miles, making it hard for him to see the storm until it was too late. Before he knew what had hit him, he was being rocked by severe turbulence as lightning flashed around him.