Transport: First Strike

Up to last week no reputable airline had ever blamed a crash on lightning. Lacking an authentic case of lightning destroying an airplane and its occupants in flight, most aeronautic experts considered such a thing outside the realm of j possibility. According to Jerome Clarke Hunsaker, Mechanical Engineering department head at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the Federal Aviation Commission (see above), there have been several cases of balloons being struck by lightning and a few cases of minor damage to heavier-than-air craft. But, says that onetime naval commander, "the...