On August 4, 2024, Delta flight DL112, an Airbus A330-300, was forced to return to Boston Logan International Airport shortly after its departure to Rome. The flight was en route to Leonardo da Vinci Rome Fiumicino Airport when it was struck by lightning, prompting the crew to make a precautionary return to Boston.
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The incident occurred approximately one hour into the flight, with the aircraft having reached an altitude of about 35,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean. The crew reported the lightning strike to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and out of an abundance of caution, decided to return to Boston. The flight, which had departed from Boston around 6:10 p.m. local time, landed back at Logan Airport at 7:20 p.m. All 204 passengers and 12 crew members onboard were unharmed.
Delta Air Lines confirmed the incident, stating that the flight was diverted back to Boston "out of an abundance of caution after encountering lightning." The airline apologized for the delay in passengers' travel and worked to get them to their final destination as quickly as possible. While lightning strikes on airplanes are not uncommon, they are designed to withstand such events. The surface of an aircraft is bonded to allow lightning to travel along the exterior and back into the atmosphere without causing damage.
The aircraft involved in the incident, registered N831NW, is 7.4 years old and was first delivered to Delta in April 2017. It remained on the ground in Boston at the time of writing. This incident follows another Delta-operated flight from Minneapolis to Houston (DL2683) being forced to return to Minneapolis-St Paul Airport (MSP) after smoke was detected in the cabin following takeoff.