A passenger plane pulled out of a terrifying nosedive with just seven seconds to spare after being hit by lightning in Scotland, says an air accident report.
The Loganair flight, carrying 30 passengers and three crew members, was moments away from crashing into the North Sea before the pilot wrested back control.
The island-hopping Saab 2000 was flying from Aberdeen to Sumburgh Airport, Shetland, when it hit a snow storm with 70mph winds, an interim report by the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) said.
The 42-year-old pilot decided to abort his approach when he was seven miles away, and the plane was then struck by lightning which travelled from the nose to the tail of the aircraft.
He and the co-pilot wrongly believed the autopilot system had disengaged and struggled to regain control of the plane as it plunged at high speed.
As the co-pilot declared a mayday, the pilot kept trying to gain height - but every move was countered by the autopilot.
When it fell to 4,000ft, the plane suddenly pitched nose down and started falling at 158ft per second.
At 1,100ft - giving the crew just seven seconds to act before the plane crashed into the waves - 'pull-up' alarms sounded, the captain applied full power and the aircraft finally started to climb.
The plane landed safely in Aberdeen, with only minor damage.
No passengers were injured, but many were left shaken by the incident, which took place on the night of 14 December.
Passenger Shona Manson told the Daily Telegraph: "It was really, really bumpy. If it was someone who's a bad flyer, it'd be their worst nightmare.
"We were on descent and I said to my partner, we're going back up again, and just as we started to go up again there was an almighty bang and a flash that went over the left wing.
"Then we were really ascending, and at that point there were a few folk looking around going 'Oh my God, what's happening?' The poor guy across the aisle from me just had eyes like rabbits in headlights."
The report said the crew may have thought the lighting strike had disabled the autopilot because other controls had stopped working.
But it was still functioning and trying to descend to its instructed level for the landing.
The AAIB report said: "Although the pilots' actions suggested that they were under the impression the autopilot had disengaged at the moment of the lightning strike, recorded data showed that it had remained engaged."
It said it had not identified any technical malfunction which might account for the incident, and the investigation is continuing, looking at crew training, autopilot design, and any "human factors".
