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Wind Turbulence
What
Causes Turbulence?
11
Things You Need to Know
by BARBARA
PETERSON
Reports of critical,
turbulence-related injuries are enough to whip travelers into a panic, but
don't cancel your next flight just yet.
We spoke to a number
of pilots and aviation experts to get the facts about what causes turbulence — and
how you can handle it.
Despite
the discomfort — and fear — it induces, turbulence is essentially just a
"rough patch" caused by wind, thunderstorms, the jet stream,
proximity to mountains, and other factors.
For travelers it's an unpredictable foe, like a sudden pothole in
the road or summer storm, but it's so common we try (very) hard to tell
ourselves "This, too, shall pass."
Still,
stories like this always make us cringe:
In
February, three passengers on a Delta flight were sent to the hospital after
turbulence forced an emergency landing in Nevada, reports NBC.
In June
2018, a Qantas plane "nosedived" because
of turbulence from another plane. And then there's this charming video of
a descending plane being "banged to its limits."
Sure,
it's terrifying stuff — but don't cancel your next flight just yet. We spoke to
a number of pilots and aviation experts to get the facts about
turbulence-related injuries and what's really happening when your plane is
tossing violently.
(Spoiler
alert: It doesn't mean the plane's about to crash.)
1. Generally, turbulence is
quite harmless.
Turbulence is relatively
common and usually harmless, but that doesn't stop it from being any less
uncomfortable mid-air, and mid-moment. There are varying degrees (and types) of
turbulence caused by any number of factors: think upward and downward currents
from thunderclouds, thermal currents, or clear air turbulence from rapidly
changing wind speed or direction. (More on that later.)
2. Turbulence-related
injuries do happen—but rarely.
The Federal Aviation
Administration says approximately 58 fliers are
injured by turbulence each year.
Two-thirds of that
number are flight
attendants or passengers not wearing seat belts when the bumps hit,
which means that about 20 passengers — out of the 800 million who fly each year
in the United States — are injured due to turbulence. And that usually happens
at or above 30,000 feet.
3. Pilots know when it's
going to happen.
In many cases, pilots
know of turbulent conditions ahead and can turn on the seatbelt sign as the
plane approaches it. Pilots are also aided by pre-flight weather reports,
cockpit radar, and reports from other planes in the area.
4. Clear air turbulence,
however, is a different story.
Clear air turbulence is
the most dangerous kind, as it occurs in cloudless skies with perfect
visibility — so oncoming turbulence cannot be picked up by weather radar.
.
This leaves little to no time for the flight crew to warn passengers to return to their seats and buckle up. Unsurprisingly, most turbulence-related injuries are due to clear air turbulence.
.
This leaves little to no time for the flight crew to warn passengers to return to their seats and buckle up. Unsurprisingly, most turbulence-related injuries are due to clear air turbulence.
5. Clear air turbulence is on the rise.
According to scientists,
the amount of extreme clear air turbulence affecting flights could more than double by
the middle of the century due to global warming. So brace yourself for more
bumpy flights.
6. Turbulence won't cause
your plane to crash.
Though it might feel like
it, no matter how severe the turbulence is, the actual safety of the aircraft
is rarely in question.
“Planes are
engineered to take a remarkable amount of punishment,” points out Patrick
Smith, the writer behind Ask the Pilot and
author of the recent book Cockpit Confidential.
7. Pilots are trained to deal with it.
To prevent turbulence,
pilots carefully study the weather patterns, plan ahead, and choose the best
route before every flight. When turbulence is unavoidable, the good ones, like
Sully Sullenberger, know how to placate anxious
passengers.
8. The seatbelt sign is worth obeying. Really.
Due to the rise of clear
air turbulence, the only sure-fire way of preventing turbulence-related
injuries is to keep your seatbelt fastened whenever the sign is illuminated.
Simple but effective.
9. Car seats work for airplanes, too.
Lap children are the
most vulnerable to turbulence-related injuries: Violent motion could make the
kid fly out of your arms.
In fact, an infant girl
a United flight was dislodged from her parent’s lap by the violent shaking of
the aircraft — and landed on another passenger several rows away (the baby was
surprisingly unharmed).
The National Transportation Safety Board has
long called for requirements that infants be strapped into an
airline-approved car seat.
10. We might soon be able
to avoid turbulence altogether.
Airlines are
testing technology that
can help airplanes avoid turbulence altogether, by using ultraviolet lasers to
send pulses into the air ahead.
11. But in the meantime,
there are a few tricks to try.
As Cynthia
Drescher recently
reported for Traveler, the best way to ride out air
turbulence might be to bring on the bouncing: "I bounce in my seat
without connection to the structure of the plane, or items fixed to it, and the
more abrupt jolts of turbulence seem less severe," writes Drescher.
Another solution, from
Captain Ron Nielsen, a pilot and 40-year veteran of the airline industry who
teaches fear of flying classes, is to disrupt your thinking: "Put a pen
in the opposite hand than what you normally use, and write your name,” he
said.
"It first causes
[the passenger] to focus extra-hard on what she's doing, because she doesn't
normally write with her other hand. And the second thing is, it's actually
crossing over her motor function in her brain, using the other side of her
brain from what she would normally do.”
BARBARA PETERSON is a writer
specializing in aviation, travel and consumer issues and is author of Blue
Streak: Inside JetBlue, the Upstart that Rocked an Industry.Barbara Peterson has worked as
a journalist covering aviation, travel and consumer issues for more than twenty
years. In addition to reporting on air travel for Conde Nast Traveler, she
has contributed articles to The New York Times, Newsweek/Daily Beast,
Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and Consumer Reports. She has
authored or co-authored three books, the most recent of which is Blue
Streak: Inside JetBlue, the Upstart that Rocked an Industry. She is the winner
of the Lowell Thomas Award for Investigative Reporting and the Gene DuBois
Award for Excellence in Travel and Aviation Reporting.https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2014-02-19/united-airlines-mid-air-scare-prevent-turbulence-related-injuries
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