by It’s the time when even savvy air travelers dread it. One minute you’re cruising along calmly at 37,000 feet. In the next, without warning, all hell breaks loose.
Heavy turbulence can throw passengers and belongings around in an aircraft cabin, and make for a scary ride. In the case of a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777 on a May 21 flight from London, the violence of the experience left a British man dead and more than 30 injured, and the aircraft had to make an emergency landing in Bangkok.
Deaths are unusual. But while turbulence doesn’t usually cause fatalities, airlines have long known that it can harm passengers, pilots and cabin crew alike.
The biggest concern is sudden, severe turbulence in the absence of clouds or storms, known as clear air turbulence (CAT), about which pilots cannot give much warning to passengers. According to Captain Mike Jenvey, a retired Netjets pilot, “obvious air turbulence is not visible and often cannot be seen using aircraft weather radar.”
That’s why, as aviation consultant John Strickland says: “It can never be taken lightly when airlines advise you to fasten your seat belt during the flight.”
University of Reading research suggests that the number of CAT incidents could increase significantly between 2050 and 2080 due to stronger winds and increased pockets of rough air due to climate change.
What exactly is turbulence?
Turbulence comes in several forms. Thunderstorms are the most common cause at airline cruising altitude.
Consisting of vast expanses of rain clouds often more than 53,000 feet – 10 miles – above the Earth’s surface, thunderstorms are a major generator of en route air turbulence. Supercooled air within the storms draws in winds from many miles around. A 2009 Met Office information document for commercial aviators advises pilots to stay at least 25 nautical miles from a visible storm.
The other main type of turbulence experienced by airline passengers is wind shear, a phenomenon that occurs when two air masses traveling in different directions cross, often causing sudden changes in altitude or direction.
Captain Jenvey explains that “vertical wind shear and CAT cause an aircraft to drop very suddenly, and then stop falling very quickly, as stable air is re-entered perhaps 100 feet-300 feet further later.”
How bad can it get?
For most the restlessness is a minor annoyance. Airline pilots from all over the world are trained to avoid it to reduce the risk of passing passengers. But in some cases it can cause death.
A former White House official died as a result of “severe turbulence” on a private business jet last year while flying between New Hampshire and Virginia. Three passengers on a Hawaiian Airlines service to Sydney in July 2023 were hospitalized after the flight experienced severe turbulence. Photos taken by those on board showed broken ceiling panels and hanging oxygen masks.
Strickland, the aviation consultant, noted that airlines use a variety of methods to determine the likelihood of turbulence affecting a flight, such as weather forecasts, radar and reports from aircraft ahead.
But sometimes it cannot be completely avoided. According to Marco Chan, a senior lecturer at New Buckinghamshire University and a former Hong Kong Airlines pilot: “The cluster of thunderstorms may not be completely circumnavigated as they can extend more than 50 knots further .”
Can the plane crash?
Turbulence has been the cause of airplane crashes, although most of these accidents occurred decades ago before modern safety analysis techniques emerged.
In November 2001, American Airlines flight 587 from New York experienced turbulence – caused by a large aircraft passing out in front of it – shortly after takeoff.
Pilot error when handling the sudden bumpy ride, the Airbus A300 crashed and killed all 260 people on board, as well as five others on the ground.
Another example is British Overseas Airways Corporation Flight 911, a scheduled flight between Tokyo and Hong Kong in March 1966. It broke up in mid-air shortly after takeoff, killing all 124 people on board. board.
Accident investigators found that the Boeing 707 had “suddenly encountered extremely heavy turbulence over Gotemba City, causing a gust load well in excess of the design limit”.
These days, Captain Jenvey notes that “aircraft are designed for temporary overloads on the airframe”, although he suggested that “strong vertical wind shear or CAT contact can overstress the airframe to a point that would require a subsequent engineering inspection. landing”.
Are there particular areas or channels where turbulence gets worse?
According to John Strickland, “exposure is greater in different parts of the world. The South Atlantic, Africa and the Bay of Europe are places that come to mind where there are more people.”
He added: “There is a debate going on about whether climate change is influencing the increase in occurrences.”
Chan, as a former long-haul pilot, says there is a particular region near the Equator known for a lot of weather troubles and turbulent conditions.
“The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) is a significant meteorological feature in the tropics. It circles the Earth near the equator and influences weather patterns.”
Captain Jenvey says, “at lower levels – although sometimes more involved if it involves a mountain range, such as the Andes in South America – forms of mechanical turbulence known as a ‘rotor’ or ‘mountain wave’ are generated as which the air current is opposed. side of a mountain or hill and push up.”
Do you get any warning or can the pilot see it coming?
Turbulence is usually associated with thunderstorms and cloud formations, which means that in daylight, pilots can see it coming. In this case passengers are warned by turning on the seat belt sign, warning them to buckle up for a rough ride.
Modern airlines are equipped with weather radars in the nose that can detect thunderstorms in the future, helping pilots change course to avoid them. But as the name suggests, clear air turbulence remains invisible to those radars.
Chan says that “thunderstorms, which may contain a lot of ice and turbulence, are prominently displayed on the pilots’ navigation display. Pilots are expected to go around thunderstorms wearing the seat belt sign as a precaution.”
What is the best way to prevent turbulence problems?
For an airline passenger, it’s as simple as keeping your seat belt fastened. Injuries caused by turbulence usually occur from people being thrown by sudden crashes due to the airliner hitting an air pocket, or entering a fast moving air mass.
It will also help you store your personal belongings safely in the seat pocket, under the seat in front of you or in the overhead locker.
Captain Jenvey says he advises air travelers to keep their seat belts fastened at all times unless it is necessary to be out of your seat. When turbulence hits, he explained, “passengers who don’t have their seat belts on can get up very quickly from their seats and push back very hard.
“If you are walking into the aisle of the aircraft, the sudden rise could cause passengers to hit the cabin ceiling hard and fall down.”
