Lightning Hits A Plane Inside A Rainbow

[Randy Jennings]

In a 2014 story, The Huffington Post UK reports that a German photographer got a picture of a plane getting struck by lightning while flying through a rainbow (with the lighthing basically following the rainbow).

The full story is here: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/08/29/cool-picture-lightning-strikes-plane_n_5734958.html

The picture by German photographer Brik Mobius is at: https://500px.com/photo/81364121/blitz-schlägt-bei-leipzig-in-landendes-flugzeug-ein-by-birk-möbius

Forgive me if this has been posted before here. I did a search and could not find it. What do you all think about this? Real? Fake? If it is real, the photographer had the best timing I have ever seen.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Considering a rainbow is not a fixed physical object (its position is relative to the perspective of the viewer) there is probably nothing physically interesting about this. It's just a coincidence - a lateral overlap between a rainbow at one distance and lightning+plane likely at a different distance. I'd say someone capturing from the ground an airborne craft being struck by lightning is itself an impressive photographic feat!