Did Lightning Really Bring Down a 737 in Colombia?

An AIRES 737-700 broke apart upon hitting the ground in San Andres, Colombia, yesterday night around 1.49 am local time. Flight 8250, which departed Bogotá's El Dorado International Airport at 0.07 am, did not report any problems during the flight.

The Boeing 737-700 with the tail number HK-4682, was built in 2003 and was originally delivered to European low-cost carrier EasyJet. AIRES took over the plane in March of this year. This is the first time ever a 737-700 needs to be written off because of an accident. Contrary to some reports, the plane did not "crash" into the runway. It made contact with the ground a few dozen meters before the runway started, but it later broke apart on the runway.

The question - as always - now is: What caused the accident? The two most prominent theories at this point are: A severe downdraft "pushed" the plane onto the ground or a lightning strike caused the accident. As usual, reporters and experts are cautious to blame the pilots. However, all signs point to the downdraft theory, together with poor reactions by the two pilots. A lightning strike as the cause of the accident can totally be ruled out in my opinion. And experts agree with that. To read why lightning cannot possible have caused the crash, please read this CNN interview with an expert. It is almost ridiculous that reporters over and over again claim that an airplane crashed because of lightning. They said that about the Air France A330 that crashed into the Atlantic last year, they said it about the Ethiopian 737 that crashed off of the coast of Lebanon in January and they are saying it again now. However, no commercial plane has crashed because of a lightning strike since the 1960s. Planes are built to withstand lightning strikes. Period!

In my opinion, this 737 crashed because of a very strong downdraft right in front of the runway and the pilots were not prepared to handle such a situation. The weather was pretty bad during the approach and changing wind directions make it hard to land in situations like these. However, pilots should be well trained to handle these tough approaches. But the pilots of this AIRES 737 apparently weren't. Severe downdrafts are not extremely rare events. They happen quite frequently and I have experienced them myself during landings several times. Whenever pilots need to land in stormy conditions they need to take possible downdrafts into consideration. And it's not like a plane is totally uncontrollable when it flies through downdrafts. The laws of aerodynamics still apply, the pilots just need to react quickly. And when they are only a couple of meters from the ground they need to react even more quickly. Sadly, the AIRES pilots did not do that.

According to a CNN story, at least one of the pilots still does not know what happened. He said: "We were caught in a great sinking as we reached the runway, as our wheels touched down. It threw us out. It threw us out. Nature is very strong. It grabbed us with everything it had. I said, 'Landing' and cut, and when I was cutting, I started to level off, and I felt that the plane was going straight (down). I pulled [on the yolk]. I pulled. I pulled. And the plane kept on going, kept on going. It was when we said, 'Landing.' When there's nothing left to do."

As tragic as this accident is, it shows us that pilots need better training. Planes are built to withstand the forces of nature pretty well. If a 737 can fly through a storm of more than 300 km/h (as several did during hurricane Kyrill in Europe a couple of years ago) without any damage, it can very well endure severe downdraft. However, the pilots need to be trained to handle that. If the pilots don't even know what's going on, how can they react properly?