Helicopter Lightning?

[Austin Jones]

Just stumbled across this video. It claims that a helicopter struck by lightning may have not only caused the strike but also amplified it by creating additional charge through friction with the ice crystals in the cloud. I'm no expert on lightning, but I was an instant skeptic on this one. I doubt a helicopter could effect the charge of something on the scale of a thunderstorm. Anyone else have thoughts on this?

 

[Dan Robinson]

It's likely the helicopter triggered the flash by acting as a leader nucleation point - planes do this routinely. However the helicopter couldn't have any effect on the intensity of the discharge.- charge generation is a storm-scale phenomenon.