Via Airlive.net here’s a video of a China Southern Boeing 737-800 being struck by lightning — minutes after passengers had disembarked the aircraft.

The video was taken at Jieyang Chaoshan International Airport in China, a four and a half year old airport with over 3 million annual passengers — served mostly by Chinese domestic airlines, but with service from Jetstar Asia, AirAsia, and Thai AirAsia.

As ‘striking’ as this is, it’s worth remembering just how safe from lightning strikes airplanes generally are. While on average it’s said that every commercial plane is struck by lightning at least once a year, I believe it’s been over 40 years since a crash has been attributed to a lightning strike. The fuselage of a plane will conduct electricity and allow it to trasmit from the strike and generally out the tail.

(HT: Rene’s Points)