Narrative:

In the early morning; there were thunderstorms in the area of ord. The lightning warning lights on [company X] hangar came on due to lightning being close to the airfield. A wsi weather alert email was auto generated for lightening being detected 4.3 miles northwest of the airport. Prior to this email being sent the lightning lights at [company X] facility were already on. About 5 minutes after this email alert lightning struck on the airfield in the vicinity of the [company Y] hangar which is less than 300 yards from [company Z] hangar. It was not until 4 minutes after lightning had already struck the ground on the airfield that the lightning warning lights on [company Z] hangar were turned on and the ramp was finally closed.clearly there is something wrong with the sensitivity and the range of lightning from the airport that [company Z] is using to determine whether or not to close the airport. This failure of the system we have in place to close the ramp prior to lightning hitting within just yards of our hangar ramp area could have easily resulted in serious injury or even the death of one of our employees. We need to improve our system for the safety of our employees.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Maintenance Technician reported the ramp and hangar area lightning warning system does not work in a timely manner.

Narrative: In the early morning; there were thunderstorms in the area of ORD. The lightning warning lights on [Company X] hangar came on due to lightning being close to the airfield. A WSI weather alert email was auto generated for lightening being detected 4.3 miles northwest of the airport. Prior to this email being sent the lightning lights at [Company X] facility were already on. About 5 minutes after this email alert lightning struck on the airfield in the vicinity of the [Company Y] hangar which is less than 300 yards from [Company Z] hangar. It was not until 4 minutes after lightning had already struck the ground on the airfield that the lightning warning lights on [Company Z] hangar were turned on and the ramp was finally closed.Clearly there is something wrong with the sensitivity and the range of lightning from the airport that [Company Z] is using to determine whether or not to close the airport. This failure of the system we have in place to close the ramp prior to lightning hitting within just yards of our hangar ramp area could have easily resulted in serious injury or even the death of one of our employees. We need to improve our system for the safety of our employees.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.