An A321 suffered a lightning strike on descent.

Attributes
ACN	904541
Time
Date	201008
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.TRACON
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	IMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	A321
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Descent
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Events
Anomaly	Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence

Narrative:

Aircraft took a lightning strike at 14;000 ft descending on arrival. When we did a post inspection we noticed that the paint on the nose gear doors was burnt and bubbled. Descending in light rain and heard a loud noise and saw large flash of light followed by what sounded like a sledge hammer hitting the front of aircraft. The cause was static electricity build up on aircraft followed by a discharge from the cloud we were flying in.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An A321 suffered a lightning strike on descent.

Narrative: Aircraft took a lightning strike at 14;000 FT descending on arrival. When we did a post inspection we noticed that the paint on the nose gear doors was burnt and bubbled. Descending in light rain and heard a loud noise and saw large flash of light followed by what sounded like a sledge hammer hitting the front of aircraft. The cause was static electricity build up on aircraft followed by a discharge from the cloud we were flying in.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.