That aircraft turbulence incident

I’ve heard differing reports as to whether bigger planes are more resilient.  The plane in question was a B777ER so no lightweight.

Assuming your daughter is flying on an A380 then?  Hope she has an incident-free flight!

She was talking about twin aisles so I assumed 747 but no 777-300. I hadn’t realised they were so big! Gosh better not tell mum…

and the wings were flapping like a bird, I reckon they moved around 10 feet up and down but it may have been my perception at a very frightening time.

Entirely believable, the wing flex on a Boeing 787 is 25 feet.

In a car I wear my seatbelt all the time, I’m no different in a plane.

Interestingly if you look around on a coach you’ll see most people don’t wear seat belts – and whilst potholes are not quite turbulence yet – the risk of sudden impact mid journey is much higher.

Interestingly if you look around on a coach you’ll see most people don’t wear seat belts

compulsory on the canadian bus I was on.

Yes I always wear seat belt on plane.  I used to work in oil industry, if you don’t listen to safety briefing on a transfer offshore you can get thrown off flight.  Pees me right off seeing people chatting while staff are doing their briefing.

Was chatting to one of the school mum’s at a kids birthday party a few months ago – she’s fairly senior at Singapore Airlines here in Australia.

Topic of conversation was the fact that Turbulence is getting more severe due to climate change – apparently this is well understood in the airline industry.  We were talking about it as I’d had to fly to/around Vietnam recently and encountered some of the worst turbulence I’ve ever experienced.  We’ve also had a few flights recently that have made the news with people being hospitalised due to turbulence.

So yeah – my seatbelt stays on.

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/cabin-crew-injured-australia-bonza-airlines-b2453281.html

https://www.ksbw.com/article/passenger-describes-plane-turbulence-on-flight-to-new-zealand/60174226

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/hawaiian-airlines-turbulence-injuries-sydney-australia/index.html

https://au.news.yahoo.com/severe-turbulence-emirates-flight-injures-122706072.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAH6MuFYtZZZ2Ab-VJTh4RSiBYSad-odgfEllk42MMDw9A21JbwGzBoe4P8ESD2bE92JZz0I7nC8xgbPwCFB9MI4p4TXDIV5QPev7PtCQh970RQ_EP2lSLPUq270IMy6jm3t8HPjYJz3jCZKyPsgGxMJUss8AGdPXKtXrGUhU_mCQ

https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/wild-turbulence-sees-flight-turned-around/news-story/6ac9b757a0861858f4c3ce1cc1f9b344

And a good explanation of it here:

Are some routes more prone to air turbulence? Will climate change make it worse? Your questions answered (theconversation.com)

A good friend from Uni is a BA pilot and he’s a climate sceptic 🤦‍♂️

Had a good smacking in an A380 coming back from Australia. Put me off for a few months of flying.

Cabin crew all locked in, pilot said nothing – but the side to side movements of the plan were terrifying.

It’s funny airlines and pilots go to great lengths to say Turbulence isn’t dangerous providing you’re strapped in. Seems to me in extreme cases it is

Every flight I’ve been on has had an announcement to keep seatbelts on at all times and I’ve never noticed passengers not keeping them buckled, although I’ve never really made any effort to check. Maybe 20 years back a JAL(?) flight attendant was killed when a food cart crushed her in turbulence. When I read about that, I realized how serious turbulence can be. Being thrown to the ceiling then dropped to the floor would be bad enough, but having a bunch of food carts thrown around the cabin would make serious injuries pretty much unavoidable. When I get up to go to the toilet, I always check that there aren’t any food carts nearby before I leave my seat.

My father in law is a retired BA 777 Cpt. He hates the culture that’s been created by the airlines, forcing people to use carry on luggage as it’ll be cheaper.

“Cabin missiles” he calls them.

Every flight I’ve been on has had an announcement to keep seatbelts on at all times and I’ve never noticed passengers not keeping them buckled, although I’ve never really made any effort to check.

Nowadays it’s essential if you’re flying in a modern Boeing machine and that’s before we start worrying about turbulence.

“If it’s Boeing I ain’t going”

Daughter just got back from Singapore first 3 hours were pretty turbulent apparently – seatbelts on no service, no sleep either but that’s helped bring her back to our timezone.

A guy I used to work with was on the 2014 RAF flight where the pilot got his camera snared in the flight controls and the plane nose dived 4400′.

The onboard computers all discussed the outcome and came up with “crash” so they took control and saved all lives on board.

They struggled to get a lot of the passengers back onto aeroplanes after that & the guy I worked with hasn’t flown since.

A good friend from Uni is a BA pilot and he’s a climate sceptic 🤦‍♂️

A surprising number of pilots are. I usually wait until they bring up their conspiracy theories and try to convince them that chemtrails are a thing.

The thunderstorms this year are earlier and more intense than I’ve ever seen them. Flew back across Colorado a few days ago and the supercell there was glowing like a light bulb from continuous lightning discharge.

It’s very easy to say flatly “you don’t fly through a thunderstorm” and that’s broadly correct. On the other hand, if you have a wall of them in front of you there’s really no choice but to pick your way through the least worst bits based solely on the world’s most paranoid weather radar and experience.

Eg in the picture below there are four options, none of which are ideal and all of which will likely have significant turbulence associated with them. The 777 also lacks the vertical situation display that you get on an Airbus.

I’ll take Route E thanks, even further right than D. Lucky I carry extra fuel to do this.

I still recall being on a 747 travelling to/from South Africa several years ago, and the Trolley Dolly* and her trolley suddenly levitated about 3-4 in the air right next to me (my shoulder height when seated) for several seconds, then crashed back down.   The seat belt then lit up.   Don’t think I got my brew either.

(I’ve always kept my belt fastened loosely, exactly for this reason).

(*official job title as stated by a friend who is a BA pilot and once worked himself as a Trolley Dolly).

I do like a thread where the professional pilots turn up. 🙂

Thanks Flaperon and dantsw13 and boardman(can’t remember full username…?). There’s possibly one or two more as well…

A guy I used to work with was on the 2014 RAF flight where the pilot got his camera snared in the flight controls and the plane nose dived 4400′.

This one. Full event is truly terrifying. https://youtu.be/Dl-Fl66Jfao?si=T1x87mq2I58vHrwW

A guy I used to work with was on the 2014 RAF flight where the pilot got his camera snared in the flight controls and the plane nose dived 4400′.

I guy i ride with occasionally was on it as well. He was discharged eventually due to disability i think.

Edit:- Unlucky bugger, turns out it was his second aircraft accident, first one got him off the planes, second one got him out of the RAF.

I love flying when its smooth and calm, but as soon as there’s any turbulance, I assume the wings are going to fall off.

This incident should convince me that planes are pretty capable of dealing with turbulence and make future flights more relaxing….. but I’m not sure it will.

Guardian and BBC have predictably shoehorned the claim into their reports of the story that the climate emergency is making air turbulence worse.

>> Guardian and BBC have predictably shoehorned the claim into their
>> reports of the story that the climate emergency is making air turbulence worse.

Well, it is.

I love flying when its smooth and calm, but as soon as there’s any turbulance, I assume the wings are going to fall off.

I’m less worried about that than the fuselage falling off, that’s where I’m sitting, after all.

Aircraft are very capable of dealing with turbulence, it’s the unsecured self loading freight inside that isn’t.

I’m very scared of flying and it’s focused on turbulence, I didn’t help to accidentally see this  headline before I left for Spain yesterday morning, then exaggerated by realising I’d be in a 737 Max 8.

To an extent, it is.  The 100,000 flights every day which pass without serious incident don’t make headline news, this was exceptional.

whilst this is true, I feel like I’ve experienced moderate & seatbelts on turbulence on 3/4 of the flights I’ve been on, but that may be exaggerated becuase I’m nervous / focused on it.

I find the turbli app fairly accurate fwiw

Thought twice about the right way to say this, but Asian passengers do have a ‘different’ approach generally to inflight etiquette.

Having lived there for a while it is not uncommon for people to refuse to wear seatbelts and stand up at inappropriate points in the flight (including immediately upon landing whilst still decelerating on the main runway).

Now, I know that many of the injured were Brits (including sadly the RIP although he died of a heart attack rather than impact injury), and generalisations are exactly that. However, since wearing seatbelts and general adherence to the basics of passenger safety are something of a voluntary code in Asia, it is not surprising that people did not have their seatbelts on for the duration of the flight when seated as advised, regardless of the seatbelt signs. Indeed the whole approach to the value of life and personal safety are not globally the same.

I agree that whilst turbulence is scary, this incident does in a peculiar way restore my faith in the strength of the aircraft itself and the ability of even an ageing Boeing to survive some pretty serious abuse.

Asia is a big place and I find it hard to take seriously anyone who asserts a general attitude towards anything there!

unsecured self loading freight

🙂

Aye. Japan is in Asia and they all got off recently when that big jet caught fire after landing on a small jet.

I’d posit they all got off because they were Japanese and followed the Crew’s instructions and didn’t mess about with ‘vital’ hand luggage etc…

Speculation I know but from what I’ve seen, it makes sense.

stand up at inappropriate points in the flight (including immediately upon landing whilst still decelerating on the main runway).

Crazy..I had a rougher then usual landing at Manchester the other day… probably not rough at all in terms of what can happen, but anyone stood up would have been sent flying/possibly broken limbs etc, as the plane jarred quite violently from left to right a few times under heavy decelleration on the tarmac..

I alway wear a seatbelt, I’ve seen ‘rough’ turbulence before! I’m only out of my seat for the toilet or to stretch my legs for a few mins.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-25/singapore-airlines-sq321-passengers-compensation-in-cabin-safety/103883404

A few days ago, the director of Bangkok’s Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital read out details of the injuries among the 41 passengers and crew being treated there.

Twenty two people sustained spinal and spinal cord injuries.

Six sustained skull and brain injuries.

Thirteen have injuries to their bones, muscles and other organs.

The patients have been grouped according to their most severe injuries, but some do fall into multiple categories.

These are injuries that have the potential to impact them for the rest of their lives.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5117ev8n7xo

Eileen is a moron.

Eileen is a moron.

For not wearing her belt when the sign was off?

Yep. Tell me she isn’t.

Well clearly she isn’t used to dealing withturbulence but when the sign is off it’s only a recommendation.

I tend not to make sweeping statements in that regard, it only makes you look even more stupid when you inevitably do something stupid yourself.

And do you think she’ll heed that recommendation in the future before she gets her head down on a long haul flight? I think she will.

Every single flight I’ve ever been on announces the wearing of seat belts “in case of unexpected turbulance.    It’s idiots like this which will force it to be mandatory throughout the flight, and a good thing too IMO.

I returned from my short break yesterday again on a Max 8 and got a free upgrade to the overwing exit.  Despite the fact I know better -rationally- I spent a lot of time staring at the not-a-plug door.  🤷‍♂️

 It’s idiots like this which will force it to be mandatory throughout the flight

Well, mandatory while seated perhaps, but we also need to encourage people on long haul to get up and walk in the cabin regularly rather than just be strapped in for 10 hours filling their leg arteries with clots.

Jesus, it must be **** great to be perfect.

This place…

Well, mandatory while seated perhaps, but we also need to encourage people on long haul to get up and walk in the cabin regularly rather than just be strapped in for 10 hours filling their leg arteries with clots.

She was sleeping.