Skip to footer

Airport lightning strike: Lightning shuts down BWI airport for two hours

Airport lightning strike: The Federal Aviation Administration says lightning struck BWI's air traffic control tower at 2:21 p.m. The airport was shut down till 4:45 p.m.

|
Robert F. Bukaty/AP
Lightning strikes near Portland, Maine, Sept. 11. There were more than 1,000 lightning strikes per hour at the height of the storm, according to the National Weather Service. Trees and power lines were knocked down across the region, and an electric substation was damaged.
  • By Associated Press

| LINTHICUM, Md.

Federal officials and the head of an air traffic control group says a worker was hurt when lightning struck BWI Airport, shutting down flight operations.

The Federal Aviation Administration said lightning struck the air traffic control tower at 2:21 p.m. Thursday. The FAA suspended arrivals and departures until about 4:45 p.m., according to a BWI spokesman.

John Dunkerly, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said that he had just left the tower when the lightning strike, which he said hit a runway, occurred. He said a traffic management coordinator who was turning on equipment in the tower was shocked when the electricity traveled to the tower.

Dunkerly says the worker was taken to a hospital. An FAA official said the worker did not appear to be seriously injured.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Airport lightning strike: Lightning shuts down BWI airport for two hours
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0912/Airport-lightning-strike-Lightning-shuts-down-BWI-airport-for-two-hours
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe