Dark lightning, or terrestrial gamma-ray flashes that occur in storm clouds tend to occur at the same altitudes as commercial airliners and some of the outburst can reach dangerous levels, new research has found.
However little progress has been made on attempts to discover whether these flashes pose a radiation hazard to airline passengers due to a poor understanding of what causes them in the first place. Compute models suggest that flashes are caused by an extreme form of lightning that is not visible, hence the term dark lightening.
Current estimates state that at top of thunderstorms, at about 40,000 feet (12,200 meters), the radiation doses are comparable to about 10 chest X-rays, yet near to the centre of the storms, at about 16,000 feet (4,900 meters) in altitude, the radiation dose could be about 10 times larger roughly equal to a full-body CT scan.
A commercial airline could pass through the potentially dangerous altitude of 16,000 feet twice per flight. However, researchers state that the radiation risk posed by these flashes is minimal since pilots already avoid thunderstorms.
Something to think about- dark lightening
