{"id":630366,"date":"2026-06-10T02:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T02:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/630366\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T02:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T02:40:10","slug":"passenger-describes-moment-lightning-hits-plane-seconds-after-it-took-off-from-manchester-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/630366\/","title":{"rendered":"Passenger describes moment lightning hits plane seconds after it took off from Manchester Airport"},"content":{"rendered":"

“For a second it looked like a ball of fire on the left-hand side of the aircraft.”<\/p>\n

22:23, 09 Jun 2026Updated 22:23, 09 Jun 2026<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A Pegasus Airlines plane (stock image)(Image: Getty)<\/p>\n

A holidaymaker has spoken about the terrifying moment lightning struck the plane he was on seconds after it took off.<\/p>\n

Nassar Massalha was aboard the Pegasus Airline flight travelling from Manchester Airport<\/a> to Istanbul, before it was suddenly grounded on Tuesday afternoon (June 9).<\/p>\n

According to the 62-year-old, what sounded like a ‘massive explosion’ was heard as the plane left the runway.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to get the biggest stories straight to your inbox in our Daily Newsletter<\/p>\n

He told the M.E.N, the aircraft circled the air for ‘around 40 minutes’ before returning to the airport for safety. The incident marks the second instance where a plane has been affected by adverse weather<\/a> conditions in the region today.<\/p>\n

Earlier, it was reported that a Jet2 plane from Leeds Bradford was forced to divert to Manchester Airport after it was also struck by lightning.<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking of his ordeal, Nassar, told the M.E.N: “As soon as the plane left the ground, it was struck by lightning. For a second it looked like a ball of fire on the left-hand side of the aircraft.<\/p>\n

“All passengers and crew are fine. Around five minutes after take-off, the captain announced that we had been struck by lightning and would be returning to Manchester as a precaution.<\/p>\n

“He reassured everyone that everything was under control. After landing back in Manchester, we were given \u00a342 vouchers to spend on food.”<\/p>\n

Nassar, from North Wales, said passengers were transferred to a replacement flight which is scheduled to leave Manchester Airport at around 11pm on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

He added: “It sounded like a massive explosion for a split second, amazingly none of the passengers and crew reacted to it , people were asking each other about the sound.”<\/p>\n

Manchester Airport has confirmed that the plane was struck by lightning.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Pegasus Airline said: “As a precautionary measure, passengers were transferred to another aircraft.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“For a second it looked like a ball of fire on the left-hand side of the aircraft.” 22:23,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,2200,2941,56,1018,54,55],"class_list":["post-630366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-manchester-airport","tag-manchester-weather","tag-uk","tag-uk-weather","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}