Alaska flight 64 takes off from Petersburg airport in July of 2018. (Joe Viechnicki/KFSK)

Multiple Alaska Airlines flights were hit by lightning in Southeast Alaska Sunday.

Alaska Airlines confirms that flights 64 and 65 both had lightning strikes from storms that moved through the northern panhandle and also knocked out power in the capital city Sunday.

Flight 65 was heading to Juneau from Petersburg.

“We were descending into Juneau when they flew through a big cumulus cloud,” said Leo Luczak, a passenger from Petersburg. “It started hailing and then we saw the flash outside the window and heard a big boom from getting hit by lightning.”

That flight landed in Juneau soon after. Luczak said the pilot notified passengers of the lightning strike and said the plane needed to be inspected. Passengers disembarked and waited in the Juneau airport for a flight to Anchorage later that evening. Juneau’s airport also lost power during the storm. Alaska Airlines says that plane was flown to Seattle without passengers for further inspection.

Meanwhile flight 64 was flying out of Juneau that day and also suffered a separate lightning strike. Instead of landing in Petersburg and continuing on to Wrangell the plane diverted to Ketchikan. The airline says a maintenance technician inspected the plane and cleared it to continue flying. That flight continued on to Seattle. Passengers bound for Petersburg and Wrangell finished their journeys on Monday.

The company says no other planes were hit Sunday. However, passengers report another strike. Bill Menish of Petersburg said he was on two separate flights hit by lightning in one day. He and his wife were on flight 65 that landed in Juneau.

“We were probably down I don’t know around 20,000 feet or less, probably less and going through some clouds and then all of sudden there’s this more of a, kind of a big pop, and then just immediately on the tail of that was this bright flash,” he described. “It was almost kind of like a reddish yellow flash. It kind of startled everybody. Nobody panicked too bad though that I could tell but it definitely caught everybody’s attention.”

And Menish said their connecting flight 76 from Juneau to Seattle also was hit.

“When we took off were climbing out, the same thing only this was actually a louder pop and a brighter flash,” Menish said. “So I don’t know if it was something stronger but it was definitely louder and brighter.”

KTOO radio reports that storms were seen in Pelican as early as 8 o’clock Sunday morning and then moved through Icy Strait, Gustavus, Funter Bay, Douglas Island, and up and down Stephens Passage. A big lightning show was reported in Excursion Inlet, west of Juneau.

Daniel Hartsock, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Juneau explained the storms moved into Juneau in the afternoon.

“They intensified over the Juneau area where we definitely got quite a few lightning strikes with a fairly good sized thunder storm that moved across the Auke Bay and the airport and into the valley and then another storm developed near downtown Juneau and kind of moved over Douglas and that area,” Hartsock said.

Juneau’s electric utility says lightning caused the power outage throughout the capital city that day and said strikes were reported in other parts of Juneau.

Matt Miller at KTOO in Juneau contributed to this report. This story has been updated with additional passenger accounts. </s> A major earthquake in northwest British Columbia shook up communities in nearby Alaska and Yukon Territory but caused no apparent damage. Kathryn Carl, a teacher in the Alaska village of Klukwan about 40 miles (64 kilometers) from the epicenter, said the magnitude 6.2 quake shook her awake at 4:30 a.m. Carl thought her 80-pound Karelian bear dog had jumped on the bed.

“She was sitting there,” Carl said. “She knew about it before we did.” A series of aftershocks, including a magnitude 6.3 quake at 6:18 a.m., kept Carl from getting a restful night’s sleep. Students at Klukwan School, where Carl is head teacher, took the quake in stride. It wasn’t even the main topic of conversation.

“They’re going fishing,” Carl said. “They’re getting ready for a hooligan trip.” Hooligan are a type of smelt. The first earthquake struck about 83 miles (134 kilometers) southwest of Whitehorse, Canada.

Richard Graham, acting director of infrastructure and operations for the city of Whitehorse, said officials inspected major structures afterward. They found no damage but had to reset traffic lights because the quake knocked out power to parts of the Yukon capital.

Jay Massie, manager of Atco Electric Yukon, said the first quake shut down one of three major Whitehorse substations and affected 8,000 customers. Power was almost restored when a shorter, magnitude 6.3 aftershock affected the station again.

Power to most customers was restored within two hours. Massie was preparing to take his daughter to swimming lessons when the first quake hit. It started slow, built to a crescendo and woke up everyone in his home, he said.

“It even woke up my teenage daughter, which is very hard to do,” he said. The quake was felt in Alaska’s capital, Juneau, about 134 miles (216 kilometers) to the south. It roused state Rep. Charisse Millett from her sleep and knocked plastic dishware off her counters.

“I am wide awake and super tired now,” said the Anchorage Republican, who has experienced her share of earthquakes but is used to them being shorter.

It’s not uncommon for an aftershock to be larger than the triggering quake, though normally the following quakes are smaller, U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Amy Vaughan said. Other aftershocks ranged from magnitudes 2 to 5.

Vaughan said the shallow initial quake had the potential to cause damage but the remote location dropped the chances of major problems. Juneau emergency programs manager Tom Mattice said he received no reports of damage. Rep. Scott Kawasaki, who said he sleeps in his Capitol office at least twice a week to get work done, also was jolted awake.

The Fairbanks Democrat said he was trying to fall back asleep on the couch when the second quake hit. A video he posted on Twitter showed liquid shaking in an energy drink bottle on a table. He said he was reminded of the recent renovation of the Capitol, meant to fortify it against earthquakes.

“I was thinking about all the construction work that went into the Capitol, specifically on seismic control,” he said. “So I’m glad the Capitol didn’t fall into the channel.”

Jaimie Lawson, a 911 dispatcher with the Skagway Police Department, said the town 55 miles (89 kilometers) away from the quake did not receive reports of damage or injuries from the initial shaking.

Computers slid around in the mobile home that houses police operations in the valley town of 800, she said, and it was the first earthquake she felt that forced her to stand up to get her bearings.

Heath Scott, chief of police in Haines, about 60 miles (96.5 kilometers) southeast of the quake epicenter, said it shook a picture frame off his file cabinet. He saw no damage as he toured the city of 2,500. The geological survey website recorded hundreds of reports of people feeling the shaking.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App now </s> One minute, the Sichuan Airlines flight was cruising at 32,000 feet.

The Sichuan Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing. (Credit: Reuters)

The co-pilot of a Chinese passenger jet that was forced to make an emergency landing was "sucked halfway" out of the plane after a cockpit windshield blew out, local media has reported.

Captain Liu Chuanjian, hailed a hero on social media after having to land the Airbus A319 manually, told the Chengdu Economic Daily his aircraft had just reached a cruising altitude of 32,000 feet when a deafening sound tore through the cockpit.

The cockpit experienced a sudden loss of pressure and drop in temperature and when he looked over, the cockpit's right windshield was gone.

"There was no warning sign. Suddenly, the windshield just cracked and made a loud bang," he was quoted as saying.

"Everything in the cockpit was floating in the air. Most of the equipment malfunctioned … and I couldn't hear the radio. The plane was shaking so hard I could not read the gauges."

The co-pilot, who was wearing a seatbelt, was pulled back in.

He suffered scratches and a sprained wrist, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said, adding that one other cabin crew member was also injured in the descent.

None of the plane's 119 passengers were injured.

When did it happen?

The Sichuan Airlines flight left the central Chinese municipality of Chongqing on Monday, bound for the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.

It made its emergency landing in the south-west city of Chengdu.

"The crew were serving us breakfast when the aircraft began to shake," an unnamed passenger told the government-run China News Service.

"We didn't know what was going on and we panicked. Then the oxygen masks dropped … we experienced a few seconds of freefall before it stabilised again.

The windshield shattered about half an hour after the plane had taken off, the Chengdu Economic Daily said.

A separate report said the aircraft had accumulated 19,912 flight hours since entering service at Sichuan Airlines in July 2011.

CAAC also said that the windshield was part of the original aircraft and had no previously recorded faults.

Incidents involving cracked windshields do happen on a regular basis due to bird or lightning strikes, but ones involving entire windshields coming off are rare.

Last month, a woman was partially sucked out of a broken plane window in the United States after an engine blew at 32,000 feet.

Passengers scrambled to save the woman from getting sucked out of the window that had been smashed by debris, but she later died. </s> Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Passengers used emergency exit slides to escape

Forty-one people died after a Russian plane made an emergency landing and burst into flames just after takeoff from Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.

Dramatic video shows passengers using emergency exit slides to escape the burning Aeroflot aircraft.

Survivors suggest the plane was struck by lightning, but Russia's national carrier said only that it returned to the airport for technical reasons.

Two children are among the dead. The jet had 73 passengers and five crew.

Initial reports suggested the plane had landed on fire, but sources quoted by Russian news agency Interfax said the jet caught fire after a very bumpy landing.

The aircraft landed with full fuel tanks because the crew lost contact with air traffic controllers and decided it was too dangerous to dump fuel over Moscow, Interfax added.

"There are 37 survivors - 33 passengers and four members of the crew," said Yelena Markovskaya, an official involved in the investigation of the crash.

A flight attendant was also reportedly killed in the incident. Five people are in hospital. One witness said it was a "miracle" anyone escaped.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Black smoke billows from the burning plane on the tarmac at Sheremetyevo airport

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The plane had just taken off from Sheremetyevo airport when it caught fire

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered a special committee to investigate the disaster.

What happened to the plane?

The aircraft, a Sukhoi Superjet-100, left the airport at 18:02 local time (15:02 GMT), bound for Murmansk.

Its crew sent a distress signal when "malfunctions" occurred in bad weather shortly after take-off.

After making an emergency landing at the airport, the plane's engines caught fire on the runway, Aeroflot said, adding that the crew "did everything to save the passengers".

Image copyright Reuters Image caption The rear of the Aeroflot plane was completely burnt out

One passenger who survived the crash, Petr Egorov, was quoted by the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily newspaper as saying that the flight "had just taken off and the aircraft was hit by lightning", adding: "The landing was rough - I almost passed out from fear."

Image caption The jet returned to the airport within 30 minutes of departing

Aeroflot published a list of survivors (in Russian) who have been identified so far.

Murmansk's Acting Governor Andrey Chibis has reportedly said that the families of those killed in the fire will each receive one million rubles ($15,300; £11,630), while the victims being treated in hospital will be given 500,000 rubles ($7,650; £5,815).

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Ambulances wait in front of the terminal building at Sheremetyevo airport

How did the survivors escape?

Mikhail Savchenko claims he was on the plane when it exploded into a fireball on the tarmac but "managed to jump out".

He shared a video of passengers running away from the burning plane, posting: "'Guys I am all right, I am alive and in one piece."

Passengers on board a separate plane awaiting takeoff at the airport posted footage on social media showing fire crews attending the plane on the tarmac.

One of the surviving passengers, Dmitry Khlebushkin, said that he was very grateful to the flight attendants. "Only thanks to the flight attendants, I survived," he told reporters.

Kristian Kostov, a former Bulgarian Eurovision contestant, has posted on social media about witnessing the incident.

He said people at the airport were left "shaking" after seeing the aircraft engulfed by fire.

Another eyewitness, Patrick Horlacher, told the BBC it was "shocking to see" the plane being ravaged by flames just minutes before he was due to board another flight.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly been briefed and expressed condolences to the families of victims.

The region of Murmansk has announced a three-day mourning period.

Can lightning bring down a plane?

With millions of commercial flights taking place every year, lightning strikes in the air are relatively common.

Traditional planes, built using aluminium, are usually able to withstand such strikes as the shell or "skin" of the aircraft acts as a cage, distributing the electricity without causing damage and allowing them to continue their journey safely.

Some newer aircraft are constructed using lighter materials that have lower electrical conductivity, such as carbon fibre, which need to be protected - often using wire mesh or foil.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A plane takes to the air as lightning strikes (stock photo)

In addition, the electronics and connections to an aircraft's fuel tanks are heavily shielded to protect them from external electrical bursts.

Lightning strikes can cause technical malfunctions, causing planes to divert or make emergency landings for precautionary reasons. But crashes following such incidents are rare.

A strike is still likely to be noticed by people on board, though. Passengers may hear loud bangs or experience the cabin lighting up with a bright flash.

Have you been affected? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk

Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways: </s> ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard says it rescued one survivor of a helicopter crash near a bay in southeast Alaska and is searching for three others. The agency says the 14-year-old survivor…

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard says it rescued one survivor of a helicopter crash near a bay in southeast Alaska and is searching for three others.

The agency says the 14-year-old survivor of the Friday crash showed signs of mild hypothermia but is in good condition, the Anchorage Daily News reported .

The crash happened near Lituya Bay, about 120 miles (193 kilometers) northwest of Juneau, officials said.

Two adults and two adolescents were aboard the crashed helicopter that was reported to be brand new out of the factory, according to the Coast Guard.

The agency declined to identify them. However, family friend Jeff Brodsky said two of the missing victims were Josh Pepperd, of Anchorage, and his son Andrew, the Anchorage Daily News reported. Pepperd’s son Aiden was found, Brodsky said.

“We are holding onto hope that a miracle will happen,” said Brodsky, who said he has been in touch with family and friends gathered at the hospital where Aiden was taken for treatment.

The helicopter was on a trip that began in Grand Prairie, Texas, bound for Wasilla, Alaska.

The Coast Guard command center in Juneau received an overdue aircraft alert at about 6:30 p.m. Friday from the Juneau Flight Service Station. The private helicopter had been expected to reach Yakutat on Friday but had not arrived, the alert said.

Clint Johnson, chief of the National Transportation Safety Board in Alaska, said the agency is sending investigators to the crash site.

“We understand they found wreckage in shallow water,” Johnson said. “This is an active search and rescue at this point.”

Copyright © 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed. </s> >> Read more trending news

Alaska Airlines Flight 78 was taxiing on the runway at Juneau International Airport ahead of a scheduled 6 p.m. takeoff when it, instead, returned to the gate, Alaska Dispatch News reported.

Roy Lane, communications manager for Alaska Airlines, told the newspaper that flight attendants complained that 11 passengers weren’t following safety protocols ahead of departure. Officials said they ignored requests for them to stop charging their cellphones and fasten their seatbelts while they were playing loud music. They also “made inappropriate comments to the flight attendants,” the Dispatch News reported.

The passengers were asked to leave when the plane returned to the gate, Lane said. Other people who were part of their group were allowed to stay onboard, according to the Dispatch News.

"While this situation does not happen every day, it's not uncommon for us to have to remove passengers if they're behaving in a disruptive manner or not following crew member instructions," Lane told the newspaper. "To us, this is a safety issue. If a customer will not comply with crew member requests on the ground, it's not safe for us to allow them to fly until they demonstrate that they're willing to follow basic safety instructions."

The passengers who were removed from the plane were able to take another flight later Monday. </s> Five people have been killed after two planes collided in mid-air over Alaska, authorities said.

The crash happened at around 11am local time (7pm UK) about 60 miles north of the city of Bethel.

The two small planes involved were a Cessna 208 Caravan carrying three people and a Piper PA-18 Super Cub carrying two individuals.

All of those on board both aircraft were killed, Alaska National Guard spokeswoman Candis Olmstead said.
• Passenger 'speaking gibberish' forces plane into emergency landing after trying to open door mid-flight

The Cessna belonged to Hageland Aviation Services, a regional airline, and the Piper was operated by Renfro's Alaskan Adventures, she added.

Renfro's offers wilderness hunting and fishing trips out of Bethel, according to its website.

Alaska is a sparsely populated US state more than twice the size of Texas, and residents in remote areas rely on small planes for travel, recreation and mail delivery.

Alaska State Troopers said rescue workers searching the crash site found no survivors aboard either aircraft, and said an investigation was continuing.
• Mid-air horror as part of plane's engine FALLS OFF while thousands of feet in the air

Olmstead said the crash occurred about 6 miles northwest of Russian Mission, a remote community in the southwest of the state along the Yukon River.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known, authorities said.

Neither Hageland nor Renfro's immediately responded to requests for comment.

An Alaska Army National Guard helicopter ferrying medics have arrived at the crash site, Olmstead said. </s> The co-pilot of a Sichuan Airlines flight that was forced to make an emergency landing on Monday was "sucked halfway" out of the plane after a cockpit windshield blew out, local media reported citing the aircraft's captain.

[SHANGHAI] The co-pilot of a Sichuan Airlines flight that was forced to make an emergency landing on Monday was "sucked halfway" out of the plane after a cockpit windshield blew out, local media reported citing the aircraft's captain.

Captain Liu Chuanjian, hailed as a hero on social media after having to land the Airbus A319 manually, told the Chengdu Economic Daily his aircraft had just reached a cruising altitude of 32,000 feet when a deafening sound tore through the cockpit.

The cockpit experienced a sudden loss of pressure and drop in temperature and when he looked over, the cockpit's right windshield was gone.

"There was no warning sign. Suddenly, the windshield just cracked and made a loud bang. The next thing I know, my co-pilot had been sucked halfway out of the window," he was quoted as saying.

"Everything in the cockpit was floating in the air. Most of the equipment malfunctioned ... and I couldn't hear the radio. The plane was shaking so hard I could not read the gauges," he said.

The co-pilot, who was wearing a seatbelt, was pulled back in. He suffered scratches and a sprained wrist, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said, adding that one other cabin crew member was also injured in the descent. None of the plane's 119 passengers were injured.

An investigation into how the incident occurred is underway.

The flight, Sichuan Airlines 3U8633, left the central Chinese municipality of Chongqing on Monday morning and was bound for the Tibetan capital of Lhasa. It made its emergency landing in the southwest city of Chengdu.

"The crew were serving us breakfast when the aircraft began to shake. We didn't know what was going on and we panicked. Then the oxygen masks dropped... We experienced a few seconds of free fall before it stabilised again," an unnamed passenger told the government-run China News Service.

"I'm still nervous. I don't dare to take an airplane anymore. But I'm also happy I had a narrow escape."

The windshield shattered about half an hour after the plane took off at 6.25 a.m. local time (1025 GMT), the Chengdu Economic Daily said. A separate report said the aircraft had accumulated 19,912 flight hours since entering service at Sichuan Airlines in July 2011.

Incidents involving cracked windshields do happen on a regular basis due to occurrences such as bird or lightning strikes but ones involving entire windshields coming off are rare.

In 1990, one of the pilots on British Airways Flight 5390 was blown partially out of the cabin window after its windshield blew out at 23,000 feet. He survived the incident, which occurred on a BAC-111 jet. </s> ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The U.S. Coast Guard says it rescued one survivor of a helicopter crash near a bay in southeast Alaska and is searching for three others.

The agency says the 14-year-old survivor of the Friday crash showed signs of mild hypothermia but is in good condition, the Anchorage Daily News reported .

The crash happened near Lituya Bay, about 120 miles (193 kilometres) northwest of Juneau, officials said.

Two adults and two adolescents were aboard the crashed helicopter that was reported to be brand new out of the factory, according to the Coast Guard.

The agency declined to identify them. However, family friend Jeff Brodsky said two of the missing victims were Josh Pepperd, of Anchorage, and his son Andrew, the Anchorage Daily News reported. Pepperd’s son Aiden was found, Brodsky said.

“We are holding onto hope that a miracle will happen,” said Brodsky, who said he has been in touch with family and friends gathered at the hospital where Aiden was taken for treatment.

The helicopter was on a trip that began in Grand Prairie, Texas, bound for Wasilla, Alaska.

The Coast Guard command centre in Juneau received an overdue aircraft alert at about 6:30 p.m. Friday from the Juneau Flight Service Station. The private helicopter had been expected to reach Yakutat on Friday but had not arrived, the alert said.

Clint Johnson, chief of the National Transportation Safety Board in Alaska, said the agency is sending investigators to the crash site.

“We understand they found wreckage in shallow water,” Johnson said. “This is an active search and rescue at this point.”
Lightning strikes on at least two Alaska Airlines planes force them to make emergency landings in Southeast Alaska. Lightning also knocked out electrical service to the state capital, Juneau.