Man hit by lightning, safe

In a bizarre incident, an engineering staff of a ground handling company suffered burn injuries after he was struck by lightning at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) airside on Monday. Faizan Haider reports.

In a bizarre incident, an engineering staff of a ground handling company suffered burn injuries after he was struck by lightning at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) airside on Monday. Airport sources say the incident took place when the engineer, Himanshu, was talking to the pilot of a Finnair flight on his walkie-talkie and was directing the flight's pushback.

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The incident left the witnesses shocked. "There was the sound of a blast and the engineer started shivering. His left side turned black immediately and he fell down unconscious. We called the ambulance but they refused to take him," said an airport source. The engineer, Himanshu, works for KLM engineering.

"The engineer was carrying out the ground handling of a Finnair flight. They hire KLM staff for the ground work. The flight, AY 022, was scheduled to depart at 8:35 am and it was raining heavily. Before the pilot could take clearance during the pushback, Himanshu was struck by lightning," the source added.

"Early this morning, one of our colleagues at KLM Engineering was struck by lightning while directing an aircraft push back. We immediately rushed him to the hospital and ensured that he received the necessary medical attention," said a KLM spokesperson.

"His cardiac indicators are normal. There were burn injuries but he is recuperating and is under observation," said Dr Naresh Trehan, chairman of Medanta Medicity.

There were over 250 passengers on board the flight. The flight was delayed by a few minutes due to the incident as well as the bad weather. The flight was later cleared by another engineer.

The Finnair aircraft was being 'pushed back' from the parking bay alpha 10 when the incident occurred.