Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. In the 2023 movie Plane starring Gerard Butler, a commercial aircraft is caught in a terrible storm. Dark purple thunderclouds suffocate the sky. The plane shakes and the lights go out. Turbulence throws an unbelted passenger across the cabin. Eventually a lightning strike cuts the plane’s power, forcing it to crash land in a warzone, where the movie’s story really begins. In reality, plane crashes in thunderstorms are extremely rare—largely because pilots seldom fly into thunderstorms in the first place.  “You’re never going to intentionally fly into a thunderstorm, because thunderstorms contain the roughest air, as well as other hazards,” says Patrick Smith, an airline captain and writer of the Ask the Pilot blog. How pilots track thunderstorms Avoiding thunderstorms, Smith explains, involves close collaboration between meteorologists, air traffic control, and the flight crew, both before and during the flight. “We receive reports and forecasts before every flight indicating where storms might occur,” he says, referring to detailed satellite mapping provided …