Plane struck by lightning while waiting to take off – video

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Footage of a Delta Airlines Boeing 737 being struck by lightning has been watched by more than a million people.

The flight was waiting to take off from Hatsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, one of the busiest in the world, when the powerful bolt hit the back of the plane.

The incident was caught on camera from inside the terminal building by a man named Jack Perkins. "While filming the line of planes all stacked up during a ground hold in Atlanta on 8/18/15 I happened to capture this direct lightning strike on a 737," he wrote.

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The recording shows torrential rain drenching the aircrafts as they wait for take-off.

A Delta spokesman confirmed the aircraft had been struck by lightning but that there were no injuries among the 111 passengers and six crew members on board at the time.

"Aircraft design allows lightning bolts to be safely redirected," Delta spokesman Morgan Durrant said.

"Fuselage structure and industrial-grade insulation acts as [a] super-conductive lightning rod that re-channels lightning around and away from customers and crew and out into the ground via the landing gear."

According to CNN, the plane took off nearly two hours late, but managed to arrive in Las-Vegas only 20 minutes later than scheduled.

The news comes after an Alitalia flight from Rome to Milan had to make an emergency landing due to a severe hailstone storm. The Italian airline's cabin crew tweeted pictures of the damage caused to the plane's nose by the storm.