An Air New Zealand flight landed in Auckland today after being struck by lightning mid-air.

Labour leader Andrew Little was on the plane, and tweeted out about the experience.

Safely in Auck on NZ410 after first experience of lightning strike mid-air! Big bang, few bumps, reassuring captain's voice. All good

— Andrew Little (@AndrewLittleMP) July 13, 2016

Fortunately, the plane landed safely.

Andrew Little said the plane was "about ten minutes out from Auckland, there was a flash of light and then a big bang and a few little bumps. We carried on flying and then the captain came on a couple of minutes later and stated we’d been struck by lightning, that the aircraft was designed for it, everything was okay and we’d be landing soon which we did.”

He said people just sort of accepted it. “I think there was a bit of stunned silence at first, there was no panic that I could tell.” 

He said the captain was very reassuring. “Captain came on, explained it and plane seemed to be functioning perfectly well and I don’t think anybody was particularly worried about it.” 

The Labour press secretary and passenger on board the flight Jodi Ihaka said it was a scary experience but passengers were reassured after the ordeal by the pilot.

 

@FlyAirNZ big shout out to the captain who brought us safely to earth after the plane was struck by lightning. Airnz Flight 410.

— Jodi Ihaka (@JodiIhaka) July 13, 2016

Air New Zealand says that lightning strikes are not uncommon and aircraft are designed with this in mind.