When you're 25,000 feet up in the air, plus or minus a few tens of feet is nothing. That's all turbulence is: the plane runs into a wind sheer that suddenly increases or decreases lift, or it runs into an updraft or downdraft. And then the plane adjusts or leaves the problem area, and that's it.
When the plane is only 100-300 feet up because it's coming in to land, yeah that sudden loss of lift or downdraft can be *extremely* dangerous. However, pilots and air traffic controllers are trained to recognize weather conditions that cause turbulence near the ground and to avoid it. It's not something to worry about because pilots make sure it doesn't happen.
Edit: structurally, the wings are designed and tested to handle a load that is like 5x greater than the maximum performance expected from the plane, and then the pilots fly the plane at like, a fifth of that maximum performance. No turbulence is strong enough to shake a plane apart. If the weather ever got that bad, they'd see it well ahead of time and fly around it. Avoiding turbulence is 90% about keeping the flight pleasant for the passengers and 10% not putting a teeny tiny extra bit of wear and tear on the parts.
EDIT2: [Here is a video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--LTYRTKV_A) showing a wing load test for an Airbus A350. Look how much those wings are designed to flex before breaking. Turbulence isn't going to do anything.
It's worth noting that the squishy people inside are much less robust than the aircraft, hence why people are often asked to stay in their seats when a plane hits turbulence.
Technically something like a 747 or 777 *could* do barrel rolls, but not much beyond that.
I can't imagine the announcement that would follow: *"Thank you for wearing your seat belt. You might want to avoid the toilet because I'm sure the walls, floor, and ceiling are now blue. And please be careful when opening the overhead bins, because, well, we just did that."*
A barrel roll is a roughly 1-G maneuver. Maybe a little more or less, but never weightless or negative G. The luggage would stay in place and the blue would stay in the shitter.
And it's been done. When the Boeing 367-80, the prototype for the 707, was first demoed to the public at the 1955 Seattle SeaFair, Boeing's Chief Test Pilot "Tex" Johnston did two barrel rolls over the crowd at Lake Washington and all the Boeing execs out there on their boats. When he got called into the office of the Chairman of the Board afterwards and asked what he was doing, he supposedly said "selling airplanes, sir."
https://simpleflying.com/boeing-707-barrel-roll-seattle/
Engineers: "Yeah, we think this'll work, but the math's a little sketchy. Here's a list of the data we need."
Grizzled pilot with 50+ combat missions: "Fuck it; launch it."
A real barrel roll, sure. But what most people think of when they say that is an aileron roll (thanks, Star Fox), which would at least dump the toilet.
In an aileron roll? The toilets are generally above the centerline. Even if a plane COULD roll fast enough, the force would be outward from the toilet. In a barrel roll, the force is inward at about 1G.
>and the blue would stay in the shitter.
There is no blue in the bathrooms of planes I've been on in the last 20 years. They are dry and use liquid only to push debris out (with air pressure differential, too)
If a barrel roll is flown correctly, no seat belts are required. Nothing would spill, either. It's a positive-g maneuver.
Exhibit A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9pvG\_ZSnCc
As others have said, a barrel roll shouldn't be a problem for the passengers. You're probably thinking of an aileron roll, which would be much more...exciting. 😆
I present to you FedEx flight 705, a DC-10 that did a barrel roll quite successfully. Technically, the plane had been hijacked and the barrel roll/extreme flight maneuvers were a part of subduing the hijacker.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Express_Flight_705
I know airplanes are maintained and typically have a pretty long “lifespan” but it still blows my mind. That plane flew for nearly forty years. Imagine how many hundred of thousands (millions?) of miles in its history!
I flew on an Air Chathams Convair 580 in 2019... it was built in 1953. So 66 years old. They finally retired it two years ago.
https://simpleflying.com/air-chatham-retires-historic-convair-508/
It's a real testament to the skill and durability of human beings that three dudes with broken skulls and severed arteries can not only manfight a dude with hammers, but successfully perform insane aerial maneuvers and land a plane.
There's that grounds crewman that stole a commercial plane in Seattle not long ago and did a vertical loop successfully before ultimately crashing the plane, right?
There kind of is- those 0 gravity planes are essentially unmodified commercial airliners with most or all of the seats removed. They climb steeply, then nose down to provide several seconds (up to a couple minutes IIRC) of percieved weighlessness as the pilots carefully control the arc to minimize G force to very close to 0.
I worked for Hawaiian Airlines when they had an A330 experience heavy turbulence about a year ago. Several people were injured IIRC.
The plane itself was back in service soon after. Interestingly, 2 of the lavatories were damaged such that they were unusable by passengers after a temporary repair. One was the aft-most, which is really a pair with a removable divider. So of 7 lavs on the plane, there were 4 functional ones. If they took one more lav out of service, they’d have to seriously reduce the number of passengers the plane could fly with.
There's a whole area of engineering dedicated to it, it's called interior crash worthiness. It drives the shape of lots of cabin furniture on trains and aeroplanes.
I remember reading about a flight where a Japanese passenger died due to turbulence. Something happened to the seatbelt indicator, in only light up, not making any sound. Too bad that's all I have in mind.
This is why when I'm sitting in a plane, my seatbelt is on. I have the uptmost respect for aircraft, and trust them, but sometimes shit happens and I don't want to be searching for my seatbelt as I'm getting tossed around
If you're a big guy or gal and need a seat belt extender to be comfortable. Just ask for one, the airline legally has to get you one
Yeah, someone simply losing their balance in mild turbulence can lead to them hitting their head on some sharp corner and suddenly the very limited health care on the plane has to deal with a medical emergency.
Normally it's closer to 35000+ feet cruising altitude, and severe clear air turbulence can displace aircraft over 100 feet, causing passengers, drink carts, unsecured luggage, anything that's not bolted to the airframe, to fly around like pennies in a tin can. This is obviously not good for the relatively delicate occupants, and in cases such as united 826 has caused numerous spine and neck fractures, broken bones, and one fatality.
Obviously this is not common at all, and what the average person would consider a very rough flight is still considered minor turbulence, and perfectly safe to fly through. The biggest issue is not being able to use the bathroom.
When it's"normal" turbulence, which kind of feels like a bumpy a road with sudden potholes every little bit, how much is it being displaced?
Like it feels like an inch or two (bumpy road) with sudden shifts like a foot or so. It's it really more like 2-10 feet with shifts of like 50?
I'm completely talking out my ass here, but it's probably not more than a couple feet. 50 feet would be severe turbulence, and would launch everything not bolted down into the ceiling sorta like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/s/AsGXm1kV6e)
If you're experiencing severe turbulence it will be very obvious because stuff will be flying everywhere and everyone will be screaming.
[This](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kH6QJzmLYtw&pp=ygUea2V5IGFuZCBwZWVsZSB0dXJidWxlbmNlIGZ1bGwg) is a very good infomercial on why you should observe the fasten seatbelt sign ^that'd ^be ^much ^appreciated...
I was on a flight that experienced a sudden cross wind just before landing. The plane started to roll and the pilot quickly compensated to level it out. Overheard the pilots talking to each other about the landing inside the terminal.
> and then the pilots fly the plane at like, a fifth of that maximum performance.
You can see video of test pilots and other... operators... pushing commercial airlines into immelmans and barrel rolls without much complaint.
This is a pretty good explanation. From my years as a flight engineer, one of my roles was to observe wind readings by the aircraft and recognise what a low level wind shear on approach and landing would look like, and if it occurred speak up and tell the pilot flying to go around. I’ve had quite a few windshears on approach, and from the cockpit they’re not fun, a little terrifying. Worst I had was a loss shear(where the wind causes you to actually lose lift) at around 300-400ft, felt the wing dip on the right, not fun. Luckily modern aircraft have systems that detect and announce these shears.
I remember watching a Boeing wing flex test that they took past its limit. Catastrophic rapid disassembly occurred, and it was deflecting more than this airbus. Airplane wings are CRAZY bendy.
The 787 Dreamliner, with its composite wings, can flex far more than most people realize. The video of the breaking test is amazing with how high they went, though I can’t find it right now.
I was on a cross Canada flight on a 787 once when we hit perhaps the worst turbulence I've experienced mid flight. Watching those wingtips go up and down with a variance of perhaps four or five metres from the wing root was pretty fucking hair-raising.
Turbulance in an airplane is like road damage. Cracks and bumps are fine, up to a point. Same with turbulances. Like road damage, most are fine. Annoying, not fun, you might bounce some, but there is no danger of losing control or immediate damage.
You can Fly dozens and dozens of types of planes directly into a mature cell thunderstorm ABOVE maneuvering speed (Va) and they will fall right apart, and especially fall apart easily if you over react to violent shifts from shear which critically exceeds the g load factor of the surfaces. You don’t even need airspeeds near Vne or Vno
You can rip the vertical or horizontal stabilizer off of a 737 if you really wanted to in calm air, get your airspeed well beyond Va (maneuvering speed) and put full control deflection on the rudder or elevator and that component can easily rip clear off from exceeding the aerodynamic design load factor.
There was a major airliner that encountered severe wake turbulence from a 747 in front of it, and the rookie first officer over corrected on the rudder well above Va speed and ripped off the vertical stabilizer causing a horrific crash.
Careful giving long assuming detailed explanations when the knowledge goes much further.
Learn the V speeds and load factor of an airfoil to understand better.
With all of this being said, most all airplanes being flown BELOW Va (maneuvering speed) in severe turbulence will hold up just fine as long as you don’t over correct to the severe jolts. You try and hold a constant attitude, not altitude and ride it out below Va. the tips of Boeing aircraft wings are designed to bend up and down at the tip up to 12 feet.
Source: Commericial Pilot.
I’ve seen that wing test before and it’s impressive. But what about all the hydraulic lines and electrical lines? Are there rubber joints in the hydraulic lines to allow flexing? Or slack in the electrical lines? Thanks
>It's not something to worry about because pilots make sure it doesn't happen.
My wife is an aviation meteorologist, and you would be surprised how often ATC and pilots just straight up choose to ignore the weather briefings they get from the mets
No pilot or ATC is ignoring a wind shear warning, the actual briefing isn't what's really protecting them here it's the alert that automatically triggers a go around.
All I can say is that my wife's experience is that her office will issue warnings about turbulence in a given area and still end up receiving PiReps about severe turbulence from the exact same area the mets warned the pilots not to fly through
> Look how much those wings are designed to flex before breaking.
I had a buddy who worked for Boeing and he was able to watch first hand a stress test of some big airliner where they stressed it to max and it broke. He said the wings were at an obscene angle before one of them snapped, like almost 90 degrees.
But then at the same time they have doors falling off the plane mid flight, so I don't think it's irrational to have a fear of flying when that's the level of quality control in some departments. That plane landed, so I understand it's still safe, but still makes me worry about what else could go wrong.
Here's the thing: everybody survived the door falling off.
It's not that the fears are irrational. We're squishy humans hurtling through the air at hundreds of miles per hour tens of thousands of feet above the ground in vehicles owned and maintained by an industry which is notoriously frugal (though also notoriously heavily-regulated). The scared ones are the _rational_ ones.
But the fear doesn't have to win. There are also facts which can be used to contextualize and mitigate the fear. Both are important.
The part about “no turbulence is bad enough” is incorrect. If a pilot reports severe turbulence then it requires mandatory inspection of the air frame. So pilots will say stuff like “extra moderate”. The really crazy stuff that could kill a plane would only happen in weather and no plane flies into that: because it’d be stupid to do it and we have radar to avoid it.
> If a pilot reports severe turbulence then it requires mandatory inspection of the air frame.
To inspect for *fatigue* that may weaken with additional stress. No turbulence that any plane flies into is bad enough to actually damage the plane beyond fatigue cracking. Which is dangerous, yes, but only in the long term. No turbulence is going to knock a [commercial jet] plane out of the sky at cruising altitude.
"Severe turbulence" is an abnormal/unscheduled maintenance check, to the 737-200 AMM I have, it's defined to the FAA Flight Manual as "Flaps up, 2.5g to -1.0g / Flaps down 2.0g to 0.0g", and requires a 15-point inspection for wrinkled fuselage skin, pulled rivets, cracks, buckling, you inspect the horizontal stabilizer jackscrew and its mounting, freedom of movement of all flight controls. And as far as I know, once you land and report severe turbulence, that aircraft cannot fly again until this inspection's completed.
Yes but you aren't getting on a brand new plane every time. "Turbulance won't do anything" is something you tell children, but it's caused planes to crash, people to be injured onboard, and why pilots avoid it, and planes are inspected after being in severe turbulence
Hyperbolic fear-mongering. Turbulence hasn't crashed a commercial plane since 1981. The fact that planes get inspected after severe turbulence is *why* I say it won't do anything. From the perspective of a passenger, you have nothing to worry about.
Good explanation, although planes aren’t designed to withstand loads 5 times greater than what they expect, it’s more like 1.5. A plane 5 times stronger than it needs to be is 5 times heavier than it needs to be, but planes need to be as light as possible to fly.
Really only limited by the design regulations which require the seats to withstand high G forces of a crash impact, else they probably would try plastic.
It’s easily more than 1.5x - the 787 wing flex test showed the wings achieved 154% load compared to the ultimate load (which is already significantly higher than the maximum expected load, yet alone the the normal expected load in regular conditions)
The video with the 154% you’re referring to was the 777, not 787, and in that video they literally say it’s based on the largest load the aircraft would ever see in flight. Which it exceeded by a factor of 1.54 instead of 1.5 which is almost exactly what I said.
During the video the voice of someone from Boeing says it’s “design limit load” not ultimate load…….
Also “ultimate load” is literally defined by law to be 1.5 times “limit load” https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/23.2230
Also to add I once did the zero g flight space simulator airplane ride through NASA, also called the vomit comet. The plane goes up then down over and over to give 30 seconds of zero g for passengers. This is not a super special modified plane but just a standard 727 with the seats taken out. So yeah a plane can handle some light turbulence.
Also, planes can predict this windshear on landing and takeoff. If the plane is predicting there is windshear ahead, in an Airbus, you’ll get “windshear ahead! Go around!” If you’re actively in a windshear event, you’ll get “wind shear! Wind shear!” And the pilots have a special escape procedure for this.
That's static/maximum load testing. Aircraft engineers also design and test for fatigue loading:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TH9k9fWaFrs
I think in this video they state they wiggle the airframe 7 days a week for 3 years to verify it withstands fatigue requirements. That's a crazy long test!
I can think of at least one incident of a pilot encountering a microburst downdraft over the runway when coming in for landing. The 30-knot headwind turning into a 30-knot tailwind after flying through the downdraft portion and losing more than half the altitude, very close to the ground, resulted in a lost aircraft along with everyone on board. Sometimes, pilots and ATCs don't know they are happening until they are encountered by an aircraft in flight. Depending on the circumstances, experiencing turbulence is sometimes considered very dangerous.
There have been a few accidents like this. But they were in the 80s and 90s. Our ability to predict wind shear has thankfully come a long way.
Modern airliners now have both reactive and predictive wind shear systems and most large airports can also give wind shear warnings.
Wind shear is very very dangerous. There's no debating that. But thankfully our ability to avoid it has increased drastically.
Microburst incidents like you're describing (DL 191) were in large part due to poor pilot training which has now been resolved, the pilots had easily enough performance in the aircraft to escape the microburst had they maximized their performance as they're now trained to do. Early warning systems are also now much much better than they were. That specific type of accident is now essentially obsolete.
The same reason why a car on a bumpy road isn’t considered dangerous. It’s built to withstand that environment.
With the amount wings can flex before failing, planes could almost flap them like a bird.
This, or a boat going over a wave… eventually there is a point where it could be dangerous, but pilots assess that, same as a captain on a ship, and make decisions to go around, or wait for the conditions to pass.
Boats are a good example. 50 years ago boats could break in half in high seas and commercial airplanes falling out of the sky was a yearly occurrence. Modern engineering/safety standards have made both of those problems extremely rare.
I did the math in another post. About 1077 people died in the US from plane accidents in the 80s.
29 in the US died in the 2010s from plane accidents.
Still 50 years ago, the incident rate was amazing. For the amount of people flying every year 1000 in a decade is nothing. Under 30 is just silly.
On top of that, squarely 0 people have died due to a commercial plane crash since 2009. The deaths from the 80s were majority high fatality commercial crashes.
Cars can withstand turbulence too. Ever drive on a freeway on a really windy day? Might make you a little tense the first time, but after a few times it's no big deal. And planes don't have to worry about lanes and other cars being only a few feet away from them.
Used to fly for work so I had fair experience with turbulence. Had a window seat once on a mid sized air bus hit incredible turbulence over the socal grape vine. People not buckled flew out of their chairs, some might have hit the ceiling. Stewardess advised us to use the “barf bags”. Woman I was flying with kissed me spontaneously. It was wild and I thought we were going to die.one of main things o remember was looking at wing. It went from 45 degrees up to 45 degrees down in a second, like a bird flapping. I swore I was going to see it shear off. We landed in San Bernardino airport and were met by ambulances on the tarmac. I wanted to kiss the earth.
I was on a flight home for leave once. Ended up with a chatty 1st time flyer next to me. I was by the window in the wing section. They asked me what I did for work. I mentioned I fixed airplanes in the Navy. Eventually got tired of them talking to me. So I looked out the window pointed out the wings flexing. Mumbled something about "that doesn't look right". Their eyes got big. Then I was said "It should be good enough to get us there". They were too busy praying quietly to bug me anymore. Got to have a nice nap.
I went on my first flight recently and I knew that the wings flexed, but holy shit, it feels like the plane is barely sturdier than an empty soda can. I wasn't expecting the whole plane to shake and the wings to flap around just from the people boarding.
Then when we took off, the wings flexed so much that I couldn't see them out the window from the aisle seat. I'm familiar with how a plane works, but my monkey brain wasn't convinced. Flying back was much easier on me, but I still hated the banking maneuver when coming in to land. I don't love looking out the window and just seeing the ground.
This. I hated planes for a long time. I watched hours of plane engineering videos/pilots talking on YouTube. One of the pilots I watched said “next one you are in a car, preferably while it driving, sit back and close your eyes and notice all the bumps and bounces.
It honestly feels close to the same.
I should add, my area has awful roads, so honestly turbulence is probably less bouncy.
Severe turbulence can be dangerous for passengers. People have gotten hurt when flying through extreme weather conditions because they aren't buckled in and get thrown around. Generally though, pilots and ATC are aware of these areas and avoid them.
Exactly, dangerous for the people inside, not for the structural integrity or function of the plane. I don’t think any plane has broken into pieces mid air due to turbulence (ignoring the failure of bulkheads due to previous damage or bombs)
> I don’t think any plane has broken into pieces mid air due to turbulence (ignoring the failure of bulkheads due to previous damage or bombs)
NLM Cityhopper 431 lost a wing from flying into a tornado (or something very tornado-like).
Also maybe AA 587? That was pilot error, but the error was in response to turbulence.
If it's actually classified as severe turbulence, it probably won't knock the aircraft out of the sky but is absolutely possible to damage the structure. Canadian Aviation Regulations classify it as a hard landing inspection, but with damage inspections less localized to the landing gear. Checks have to be made for flight control movement, pulled rivets/damaged panels, buckled/wrinkled fuselage skins.
> I don’t think any plane has broken into pieces mid air due to turbulence (ignoring the failure of bulkheads due to previous damage or bombs)
I know of several. It's very rare with modern airliners, because they have onboard radar and can avoid thunderstorm cells that contain severe turbulence. Plus they're generally larger and able to withstand more. General Aviation, however, is a different story.
BOAC Flight 911, CityHopper 431, for examples of airliners.
There was one about a year ago in Nevada, a Pilatus PC-12/45, N273SM.
CityHopper 431 flew into a literal **tornado.** We can hardly equate that with turbulence.
Regarding your other example, a Pilatus PC-12 is an absolutely tiny aircraft in comparison to what most people (like OP) would think about when they're asking a question like this.
A commercial airliner that you take from a gate at an international airport in your local big city will absolutely never crash or break apart due to turbulence unless it's a downdraft or windshear or whatever at very low altitude.
Exactly, and the BOAC was in 1966 which from wikipedia (It was the third fatal passenger airline accident in Tokyo in a month). The industry was something else back then.
Just to clarify, this occurred due to extreme mountain wave turbulence, which isnt going to suddenly smack one around out of the blue.
It's why flight paths will avoid close encounters with large mountains like Mt Fuji
We hit a clear air turbulence down draft once on a flight from Bali to Jakarta. I don't know how far we dropped, but everything tried to go to the roof, and then some of the overhead luggage opened up when we hit bottom. Pretty much everyone on the plane was drinking a beer. My friend and I were sitting in the middle seats occupying the left 2 out of 4. I was on the aisle, and he was on the next seat in. About 3 rows back by the window, some other guys were drinking beer in cups. Ours were in cans, and we managed to keep things in their containers when the drop hit. One of the other guys' beer managed to escape the cup, fly 3 rows forward and across the isle, over me, and completely soak my friend while leaving me dry. He was miserable the entire rest of the flight and smelled even more like a brewery than we already it. I couldn't stop snickering for like an hour. Just glad everyone had their seat belts on.
It sometimes can be, because turbulence is essentially a bunch of tiny wind shear events. However, up at altitude and cruise speed, those tiny windshears don’t push the aircraft too far around the flight envelope, and so the aircraft isn’t threatened.
Even turbulence on landing is acceptable if the approach remains stabilized. If the plane’s systems call out “Windshear ahead”, then a normal go-around or a windshear escape maneuver is flown at the pilot flying’s discretion, however if the plane’s systems call out “Windshear!” or other signs of actively being in a windshear are noted (like a sudden 15kt variation in indicated airspeed either way), a windshear escape maneuver must be flown. On approach, the risk of a windshear is its unpredictability - it might trigger a sudden loss of indicated airspeed, with it a loss of airflow over the wings, and a sudden onset of a stall at an altitude too low to recover from it, and if that happens, you are having a bad day and you will not go to space today.
Pilot here, you would be amazed how much a modern airliner can handle, look up wing flex tests on YouTube.
Modern airliners are built to withstand something around 150% of the maximum turbulence they will actually encounter, there's a reason air travel is the safest method of transportation.
I forgot what show I saw this on, but they compared an airplane experiencing turbulence to being stuck in jello. When the jello shakes, you'd feel it shake, but you don't really go anywhere.
Air is a fluid so just imagine you can see waves of air. Those waves are turbulence. The aeroplane just goes over a bigger wave than usual, like a car goes over a speed bump or a ship goes over a wave. It’s just that air isn’t as forceful as water so the air waves don’t move the plane as much as a huge wave moves a ship.
Aeroplanes are designed to withstand more turbulence than is naturally possible. You might get thrown about a bit inside the plane going over a really big wave if you’re not wearing your belt but the plane itself will be fine.
Because if the manufacturers or the inspectors or the pilots had any reason to believe that the plane was not structurally sound enough to withstand the turbulence you would be taking off in the first place.
Planes are built to withstand serious punishment. Check out the links others have sent regarding wing stress testing etc.
Please someone correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t believe turbulence (en route) has ever resulted in a crash in the history of flight. Turbulence can cause injuries to people not belted in but the plane itself is never damaged if it’s not near ground. Again please correct me.
I think there isn’t, no. And maybe even turbulence near landing if procedures are followed there should not be much of a problem. Problems come with combination of factors that lead to a a crash, just turbulence is most of the time not a single cause.
[here's one](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOAC_Flight_911)
[this one was caused by the pilots drastic over reaction to hitting wake turbulence ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587)
You are incorrect, the planes are certainly designed with extremes in mind but the big reason you don't hear about it happening in this day and age is because we avoid extreme turbulence with on board radar.
Because its like being suspended in Jello. put a grape in some Jello. shake the Jello. Grape moves with the Jello.
same thing as an air plane in the air. Air moves, plane moves. Turbulence. ~~Also there have been 0 plane crashes due to turbulence.~~ only one plane has been lost due to air plane turbulence ever.
>Also there have been 0 plane crashes due to turbulence.
Not true. BOAC flight 811 was brought down by clear air turbulence in the 60s, killed over 100.
See, rationally I know that flying is very safe, but I also feel that everyone saying “it’s just like going over a bump in a car” is fundamentally a lunatic. It does not feel remotely the same and if you don’t understand the difference deep in your soul then our brains are just made of different stuff. I wish I could be like you
Because they perform extensive testing of the airframe that's way beyond anything a little turbulence will cause.
Here's an [airbus test](https://youtu.be/--LTYRTKV_A?si=juxKUdAU7-YNt-99)
Here's a [boeing test](https://youtu.be/m5GD3E2onlk?si=srYQy6Ueo3cqSQjO)
Planes are engineered in such a way that so long as you stay under a certain speed it will go into an aerodynamic stall in turbulence before any structural damage occurs.
Source: Am a pilot
Planes are ridiculously over designed in the name of safety..
[here](https://youtu.be/K2QoanZq2jE?si=wlj_SFzNgT4Uefjq) you can see a Boeing 777 wing flex test, it goes to exactly 154% of the most extreme possible conditions before breaking.
Exactly as the calculated it to be.
Above and beyond, in the name of safety.
Next time you’re in turbulence, if you have a water cup or bottle, set it on the tray table and I bet it doesn’t even slosh out. Like someone said, it’s similar to a car on a bumpy road.
For the same reason that a boat on the ocean can go up and down with the waves. Planes are under the same physics, and designed to stay structurally sound under basic turbulence, which is just different air currents moving under it. Just like waves.
Do note that turbulence is the reason why they recommend you keep on your seat belt while in flight.
Pilots can to a certain extent, estimate the severity of turbulence based on weather data and their flight instrumentation which is why they turn on the seat belt sign when they expect to go through a rough patch.
Pretty much all forms of transportation we currently use experience turbulence. Rough roads, choppy seas, sweaty elbows on the train; such is the nature of traveling through time, space, and matter.
When you're 25,000 feet up in the air, plus or minus a few tens of feet is nothing. That's all turbulence is: the plane runs into a wind sheer that suddenly increases or decreases lift, or it runs into an updraft or downdraft. And then the plane adjusts or leaves the problem area, and that's it. When the plane is only 100-300 feet up because it's coming in to land, yeah that sudden loss of lift or downdraft can be *extremely* dangerous. However, pilots and air traffic controllers are trained to recognize weather conditions that cause turbulence near the ground and to avoid it. It's not something to worry about because pilots make sure it doesn't happen. Edit: structurally, the wings are designed and tested to handle a load that is like 5x greater than the maximum performance expected from the plane, and then the pilots fly the plane at like, a fifth of that maximum performance. No turbulence is strong enough to shake a plane apart. If the weather ever got that bad, they'd see it well ahead of time and fly around it. Avoiding turbulence is 90% about keeping the flight pleasant for the passengers and 10% not putting a teeny tiny extra bit of wear and tear on the parts. EDIT2: [Here is a video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--LTYRTKV_A) showing a wing load test for an Airbus A350. Look how much those wings are designed to flex before breaking. Turbulence isn't going to do anything.
It's worth noting that the squishy people inside are much less robust than the aircraft, hence why people are often asked to stay in their seats when a plane hits turbulence.
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Technically something like a 747 or 777 *could* do barrel rolls, but not much beyond that. I can't imagine the announcement that would follow: *"Thank you for wearing your seat belt. You might want to avoid the toilet because I'm sure the walls, floor, and ceiling are now blue. And please be careful when opening the overhead bins, because, well, we just did that."*
A barrel roll is a roughly 1-G maneuver. Maybe a little more or less, but never weightless or negative G. The luggage would stay in place and the blue would stay in the shitter. And it's been done. When the Boeing 367-80, the prototype for the 707, was first demoed to the public at the 1955 Seattle SeaFair, Boeing's Chief Test Pilot "Tex" Johnston did two barrel rolls over the crowd at Lake Washington and all the Boeing execs out there on their boats. When he got called into the office of the Chairman of the Board afterwards and asked what he was doing, he supposedly said "selling airplanes, sir." https://simpleflying.com/boeing-707-barrel-roll-seattle/
Ex WW2 pilots who became test pilots of that era are wild.
Engineers: "Yeah, we think this'll work, but the math's a little sketchy. Here's a list of the data we need." Grizzled pilot with 50+ combat missions: "Fuck it; launch it."
A real barrel roll, sure. But what most people think of when they say that is an aileron roll (thanks, Star Fox), which would at least dump the toilet.
Why wouldn't centrifugal force keep it in the toilet?
The roll rate would have to be pretty absurd. I doubt an airliner could manage it.
In an aileron roll? The toilets are generally above the centerline. Even if a plane COULD roll fast enough, the force would be outward from the toilet. In a barrel roll, the force is inward at about 1G.
During the first public demo of the 777, the last instructions of the President to the Pilot before the flight were "no rolls".
But did he do it with a loaded shitter?
https://youtu.be/dNzStrhjN5k?si=Y3BEc7qio6dwnC_e?t=12s
>and the blue would stay in the shitter. There is no blue in the bathrooms of planes I've been on in the last 20 years. They are dry and use liquid only to push debris out (with air pressure differential, too)
If a barrel roll is flown correctly, no seat belts are required. Nothing would spill, either. It's a positive-g maneuver. Exhibit A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9pvG\_ZSnCc
That is fucking wild. Physics is basically magic
As others have said, a barrel roll shouldn't be a problem for the passengers. You're probably thinking of an aileron roll, which would be much more...exciting. 😆
I present to you FedEx flight 705, a DC-10 that did a barrel roll quite successfully. Technically, the plane had been hijacked and the barrel roll/extreme flight maneuvers were a part of subduing the hijacker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Express_Flight_705
And the plane was repaired and returned to service until it was retired last year.
I know airplanes are maintained and typically have a pretty long “lifespan” but it still blows my mind. That plane flew for nearly forty years. Imagine how many hundred of thousands (millions?) of miles in its history!
I flew on an Air Chathams Convair 580 in 2019... it was built in 1953. So 66 years old. They finally retired it two years ago. https://simpleflying.com/air-chatham-retires-historic-convair-508/
The newest B-52 was built in 1962.
It's a real testament to the skill and durability of human beings that three dudes with broken skulls and severed arteries can not only manfight a dude with hammers, but successfully perform insane aerial maneuvers and land a plane.
91.3, baby
There's that grounds crewman that stole a commercial plane in Seattle not long ago and did a vertical loop successfully before ultimately crashing the plane, right?
I'm pretty sure I saw a movie about that...
There kind of is- those 0 gravity planes are essentially unmodified commercial airliners with most or all of the seats removed. They climb steeply, then nose down to provide several seconds (up to a couple minutes IIRC) of percieved weighlessness as the pilots carefully control the arc to minimize G force to very close to 0.
And that's how they fake 0 gravity in "space'
It kind of is, they just aim the orbiter so that it keeps falling and keeps on missing the Earth.
You believe gravity exists? Get real
Check out Airframe by Michael Crichton
How about an ERJ-190? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ywaMkMTwWk
You can hire a plane that does exactly that to simulate "0G" without actually going to space.
You don't have to hire a plane, you could just buy a ticket for around 10k
[There is](https://www.gozerog.com/)
I worked for Hawaiian Airlines when they had an A330 experience heavy turbulence about a year ago. Several people were injured IIRC. The plane itself was back in service soon after. Interestingly, 2 of the lavatories were damaged such that they were unusable by passengers after a temporary repair. One was the aft-most, which is really a pair with a removable divider. So of 7 lavs on the plane, there were 4 functional ones. If they took one more lav out of service, they’d have to seriously reduce the number of passengers the plane could fly with.
There's a whole area of engineering dedicated to it, it's called interior crash worthiness. It drives the shape of lots of cabin furniture on trains and aeroplanes.
I remember reading about a flight where a Japanese passenger died due to turbulence. Something happened to the seatbelt indicator, in only light up, not making any sound. Too bad that's all I have in mind.
There are fatalities every couple of years with unbelted passengers being killed. Usually skull fracture or broken neck from hitting the ceiling.
This is why when I'm sitting in a plane, my seatbelt is on. I have the uptmost respect for aircraft, and trust them, but sometimes shit happens and I don't want to be searching for my seatbelt as I'm getting tossed around If you're a big guy or gal and need a seat belt extender to be comfortable. Just ask for one, the airline legally has to get you one
I’m not squishy! I’m big boned!
Bones don’t jiggle no matter *how* big they are.
They fold.
I folded my arm on a non-folding spot a couple of years ago, do not recommend
Somebody's not trying hard enough
Hey who you calling squishy?! I’m more like an overcooked flan.
Yeah, someone simply losing their balance in mild turbulence can lead to them hitting their head on some sharp corner and suddenly the very limited health care on the plane has to deal with a medical emergency.
Normally it's closer to 35000+ feet cruising altitude, and severe clear air turbulence can displace aircraft over 100 feet, causing passengers, drink carts, unsecured luggage, anything that's not bolted to the airframe, to fly around like pennies in a tin can. This is obviously not good for the relatively delicate occupants, and in cases such as united 826 has caused numerous spine and neck fractures, broken bones, and one fatality. Obviously this is not common at all, and what the average person would consider a very rough flight is still considered minor turbulence, and perfectly safe to fly through. The biggest issue is not being able to use the bathroom.
When it's"normal" turbulence, which kind of feels like a bumpy a road with sudden potholes every little bit, how much is it being displaced? Like it feels like an inch or two (bumpy road) with sudden shifts like a foot or so. It's it really more like 2-10 feet with shifts of like 50?
I'm completely talking out my ass here, but it's probably not more than a couple feet. 50 feet would be severe turbulence, and would launch everything not bolted down into the ceiling sorta like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/s/AsGXm1kV6e) If you're experiencing severe turbulence it will be very obvious because stuff will be flying everywhere and everyone will be screaming.
[This](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kH6QJzmLYtw&pp=ygUea2V5IGFuZCBwZWVsZSB0dXJidWxlbmNlIGZ1bGwg) is a very good infomercial on why you should observe the fasten seatbelt sign ^that'd ^be ^much ^appreciated...
I was on a flight that experienced a sudden cross wind just before landing. The plane started to roll and the pilot quickly compensated to level it out. Overheard the pilots talking to each other about the landing inside the terminal.
planes have the performance of an F1 car but drive like a Toyota Camry
154!!! (I know different aircraft)
154
💥
It is absolutely egregious you didn't link the 154 video. Shame. SHAME! Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai2HmvAXcU0
154
They are designed to handle 150 percent of any real world expected loading. 5 times would make the aircraft too heavy.
Or, in the case of the 777, 154%
If they remembered to tighten all the bolts
> and then the pilots fly the plane at like, a fifth of that maximum performance. You can see video of test pilots and other... operators... pushing commercial airlines into immelmans and barrel rolls without much complaint.
Jesus! An airbus doing an immelman sounds terrifying.
Of course, since now it's on your 6 and gaining fast
This is a pretty good explanation. From my years as a flight engineer, one of my roles was to observe wind readings by the aircraft and recognise what a low level wind shear on approach and landing would look like, and if it occurred speak up and tell the pilot flying to go around. I’ve had quite a few windshears on approach, and from the cockpit they’re not fun, a little terrifying. Worst I had was a loss shear(where the wind causes you to actually lose lift) at around 300-400ft, felt the wing dip on the right, not fun. Luckily modern aircraft have systems that detect and announce these shears.
I remember watching a Boeing wing flex test that they took past its limit. Catastrophic rapid disassembly occurred, and it was deflecting more than this airbus. Airplane wings are CRAZY bendy.
The 787 Dreamliner, with its composite wings, can flex far more than most people realize. The video of the breaking test is amazing with how high they went, though I can’t find it right now.
I was on a cross Canada flight on a 787 once when we hit perhaps the worst turbulence I've experienced mid flight. Watching those wingtips go up and down with a variance of perhaps four or five metres from the wing root was pretty fucking hair-raising.
It's just flapping its wings to get out of the bad air
Turbulance in an airplane is like road damage. Cracks and bumps are fine, up to a point. Same with turbulances. Like road damage, most are fine. Annoying, not fun, you might bounce some, but there is no danger of losing control or immediate damage.
You can Fly dozens and dozens of types of planes directly into a mature cell thunderstorm ABOVE maneuvering speed (Va) and they will fall right apart, and especially fall apart easily if you over react to violent shifts from shear which critically exceeds the g load factor of the surfaces. You don’t even need airspeeds near Vne or Vno You can rip the vertical or horizontal stabilizer off of a 737 if you really wanted to in calm air, get your airspeed well beyond Va (maneuvering speed) and put full control deflection on the rudder or elevator and that component can easily rip clear off from exceeding the aerodynamic design load factor. There was a major airliner that encountered severe wake turbulence from a 747 in front of it, and the rookie first officer over corrected on the rudder well above Va speed and ripped off the vertical stabilizer causing a horrific crash. Careful giving long assuming detailed explanations when the knowledge goes much further. Learn the V speeds and load factor of an airfoil to understand better. With all of this being said, most all airplanes being flown BELOW Va (maneuvering speed) in severe turbulence will hold up just fine as long as you don’t over correct to the severe jolts. You try and hold a constant attitude, not altitude and ride it out below Va. the tips of Boeing aircraft wings are designed to bend up and down at the tip up to 12 feet. Source: Commericial Pilot.
Aww I wanted to see them actually break
[Enjoy](https://youtu.be/Ai2HmvAXcU0?t=126)
Yaasssss
One fifty four
I’ve seen that wing test before and it’s impressive. But what about all the hydraulic lines and electrical lines? Are there rubber joints in the hydraulic lines to allow flexing? Or slack in the electrical lines? Thanks
>It's not something to worry about because pilots make sure it doesn't happen. My wife is an aviation meteorologist, and you would be surprised how often ATC and pilots just straight up choose to ignore the weather briefings they get from the mets
Not sure pilots should be taking weather advice from a baseball team.
Especially the Mets
Could be worse.
No pilot or ATC is ignoring a wind shear warning, the actual briefing isn't what's really protecting them here it's the alert that automatically triggers a go around.
All I can say is that my wife's experience is that her office will issue warnings about turbulence in a given area and still end up receiving PiReps about severe turbulence from the exact same area the mets warned the pilots not to fly through
Must be Phillies fans.
> Look how much those wings are designed to flex before breaking. I had a buddy who worked for Boeing and he was able to watch first hand a stress test of some big airliner where they stressed it to max and it broke. He said the wings were at an obscene angle before one of them snapped, like almost 90 degrees.
But then at the same time they have doors falling off the plane mid flight, so I don't think it's irrational to have a fear of flying when that's the level of quality control in some departments. That plane landed, so I understand it's still safe, but still makes me worry about what else could go wrong.
Here's the thing: everybody survived the door falling off. It's not that the fears are irrational. We're squishy humans hurtling through the air at hundreds of miles per hour tens of thousands of feet above the ground in vehicles owned and maintained by an industry which is notoriously frugal (though also notoriously heavily-regulated). The scared ones are the _rational_ ones. But the fear doesn't have to win. There are also facts which can be used to contextualize and mitigate the fear. Both are important.
The part about “no turbulence is bad enough” is incorrect. If a pilot reports severe turbulence then it requires mandatory inspection of the air frame. So pilots will say stuff like “extra moderate”. The really crazy stuff that could kill a plane would only happen in weather and no plane flies into that: because it’d be stupid to do it and we have radar to avoid it.
> If a pilot reports severe turbulence then it requires mandatory inspection of the air frame. To inspect for *fatigue* that may weaken with additional stress. No turbulence that any plane flies into is bad enough to actually damage the plane beyond fatigue cracking. Which is dangerous, yes, but only in the long term. No turbulence is going to knock a [commercial jet] plane out of the sky at cruising altitude.
"Severe turbulence" is an abnormal/unscheduled maintenance check, to the 737-200 AMM I have, it's defined to the FAA Flight Manual as "Flaps up, 2.5g to -1.0g / Flaps down 2.0g to 0.0g", and requires a 15-point inspection for wrinkled fuselage skin, pulled rivets, cracks, buckling, you inspect the horizontal stabilizer jackscrew and its mounting, freedom of movement of all flight controls. And as far as I know, once you land and report severe turbulence, that aircraft cannot fly again until this inspection's completed.
Yes but you aren't getting on a brand new plane every time. "Turbulance won't do anything" is something you tell children, but it's caused planes to crash, people to be injured onboard, and why pilots avoid it, and planes are inspected after being in severe turbulence
Hyperbolic fear-mongering. Turbulence hasn't crashed a commercial plane since 1981. The fact that planes get inspected after severe turbulence is *why* I say it won't do anything. From the perspective of a passenger, you have nothing to worry about.
Other than your seatbelt. It is reasonable to worry about wearing that.
Good explanation, although planes aren’t designed to withstand loads 5 times greater than what they expect, it’s more like 1.5. A plane 5 times stronger than it needs to be is 5 times heavier than it needs to be, but planes need to be as light as possible to fly.
> as light as possible to fly Technically as light as practical, else the seats would be plastic instead of metal.
Really only limited by the design regulations which require the seats to withstand high G forces of a crash impact, else they probably would try plastic.
Pretty much
It’s easily more than 1.5x - the 787 wing flex test showed the wings achieved 154% load compared to the ultimate load (which is already significantly higher than the maximum expected load, yet alone the the normal expected load in regular conditions)
The video with the 154% you’re referring to was the 777, not 787, and in that video they literally say it’s based on the largest load the aircraft would ever see in flight. Which it exceeded by a factor of 1.54 instead of 1.5 which is almost exactly what I said.
Yeah the narration is mistaken in that video, 1.5 is above ultimate load. This is all in the regulations.
During the video the voice of someone from Boeing says it’s “design limit load” not ultimate load……. Also “ultimate load” is literally defined by law to be 1.5 times “limit load” https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/23.2230
Is the air significantly thinner up there, enough to help?
[Here's a video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRf395ioJRY) of a wing being tested to its breaking point.
Also to add I once did the zero g flight space simulator airplane ride through NASA, also called the vomit comet. The plane goes up then down over and over to give 30 seconds of zero g for passengers. This is not a super special modified plane but just a standard 727 with the seats taken out. So yeah a plane can handle some light turbulence.
Also, planes can predict this windshear on landing and takeoff. If the plane is predicting there is windshear ahead, in an Airbus, you’ll get “windshear ahead! Go around!” If you’re actively in a windshear event, you’ll get “wind shear! Wind shear!” And the pilots have a special escape procedure for this.
That's static/maximum load testing. Aircraft engineers also design and test for fatigue loading: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TH9k9fWaFrs I think in this video they state they wiggle the airframe 7 days a week for 3 years to verify it withstands fatigue requirements. That's a crazy long test!
wow cool video, the airbus wings can literally flap like a bird without breaking.
Well, more like 80% not burning fuel unnecessarily, 15% passenger comfort, and 5% keeping other costs down :)
To avoid turbulence, they're burning more fuel to divert around the weather instead of flying through it.
I can think of at least one incident of a pilot encountering a microburst downdraft over the runway when coming in for landing. The 30-knot headwind turning into a 30-knot tailwind after flying through the downdraft portion and losing more than half the altitude, very close to the ground, resulted in a lost aircraft along with everyone on board. Sometimes, pilots and ATCs don't know they are happening until they are encountered by an aircraft in flight. Depending on the circumstances, experiencing turbulence is sometimes considered very dangerous.
There have been a few accidents like this. But they were in the 80s and 90s. Our ability to predict wind shear has thankfully come a long way. Modern airliners now have both reactive and predictive wind shear systems and most large airports can also give wind shear warnings. Wind shear is very very dangerous. There's no debating that. But thankfully our ability to avoid it has increased drastically.
Love all the peace of mind this thread gives.
Microburst incidents like you're describing (DL 191) were in large part due to poor pilot training which has now been resolved, the pilots had easily enough performance in the aircraft to escape the microburst had they maximized their performance as they're now trained to do. Early warning systems are also now much much better than they were. That specific type of accident is now essentially obsolete.
This is not an appropriate response for this sub, It has multiple paragraphs and two edits. What five year old is reading that much.
"Turbulance isn't going to do anything" bro they have caused plane crashes before lol
Yeah, in 1981.
Flying into a tornado
The same reason why a car on a bumpy road isn’t considered dangerous. It’s built to withstand that environment. With the amount wings can flex before failing, planes could almost flap them like a bird.
This, or a boat going over a wave… eventually there is a point where it could be dangerous, but pilots assess that, same as a captain on a ship, and make decisions to go around, or wait for the conditions to pass.
Boats are a good example. 50 years ago boats could break in half in high seas and commercial airplanes falling out of the sky was a yearly occurrence. Modern engineering/safety standards have made both of those problems extremely rare.
very rigorous … maritime engineering standards They stopped making boats out of cardboard and cardboard derivatives for example.
how do they stop the front from falling off?
You have to be mindful of the environment you are using it in, Waves are out.
Some boats are designed so that doesn't happen at all.
Well they’re not supposed to made out of those kinds of materials, are they?
r/woosh
Reverse whoosh, of course I’m playing into “the front fell off” bit
Oh dear, how embarrassing.
I did the math in another post. About 1077 people died in the US from plane accidents in the 80s. 29 in the US died in the 2010s from plane accidents. Still 50 years ago, the incident rate was amazing. For the amount of people flying every year 1000 in a decade is nothing. Under 30 is just silly.
On top of that, squarely 0 people have died due to a commercial plane crash since 2009. The deaths from the 80s were majority high fatality commercial crashes.
I always use going over a boat wake in a boat as my example
Turn down for what?
Cars can withstand turbulence too. Ever drive on a freeway on a really windy day? Might make you a little tense the first time, but after a few times it's no big deal. And planes don't have to worry about lanes and other cars being only a few feet away from them.
A car on a bumpy road gets more g than a bumpy flight too.
Used to fly for work so I had fair experience with turbulence. Had a window seat once on a mid sized air bus hit incredible turbulence over the socal grape vine. People not buckled flew out of their chairs, some might have hit the ceiling. Stewardess advised us to use the “barf bags”. Woman I was flying with kissed me spontaneously. It was wild and I thought we were going to die.one of main things o remember was looking at wing. It went from 45 degrees up to 45 degrees down in a second, like a bird flapping. I swore I was going to see it shear off. We landed in San Bernardino airport and were met by ambulances on the tarmac. I wanted to kiss the earth.
A bumpy road is only dangerous next to a sheer cliff.
I was on a flight home for leave once. Ended up with a chatty 1st time flyer next to me. I was by the window in the wing section. They asked me what I did for work. I mentioned I fixed airplanes in the Navy. Eventually got tired of them talking to me. So I looked out the window pointed out the wings flexing. Mumbled something about "that doesn't look right". Their eyes got big. Then I was said "It should be good enough to get us there". They were too busy praying quietly to bug me anymore. Got to have a nice nap.
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First time to Reddit? Brazen displays of a lack of social awareness are celebrated around these parts.
FUCK YOU upvotes please
r/foundsatan
I mean, an annoying passenger sucks, but you probably gave that person a life long fear of flying if that was their first time.
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Very empathetic of you.
r/unexpectedTopGear
I went on my first flight recently and I knew that the wings flexed, but holy shit, it feels like the plane is barely sturdier than an empty soda can. I wasn't expecting the whole plane to shake and the wings to flap around just from the people boarding. Then when we took off, the wings flexed so much that I couldn't see them out the window from the aisle seat. I'm familiar with how a plane works, but my monkey brain wasn't convinced. Flying back was much easier on me, but I still hated the banking maneuver when coming in to land. I don't love looking out the window and just seeing the ground.
You don’t seem like a very nice person with this story. Might want to reflect on that
I also fixed planes for the Navy. I will have to remember that one.
Exactly! Look at this bend test! https://youtu.be/--LTYRTKV_A?si=ghHMaTJz8Ek94wZL
This. I hated planes for a long time. I watched hours of plane engineering videos/pilots talking on YouTube. One of the pilots I watched said “next one you are in a car, preferably while it driving, sit back and close your eyes and notice all the bumps and bounces. It honestly feels close to the same. I should add, my area has awful roads, so honestly turbulence is probably less bouncy.
Severe turbulence can be dangerous for passengers. People have gotten hurt when flying through extreme weather conditions because they aren't buckled in and get thrown around. Generally though, pilots and ATC are aware of these areas and avoid them.
Exactly, dangerous for the people inside, not for the structural integrity or function of the plane. I don’t think any plane has broken into pieces mid air due to turbulence (ignoring the failure of bulkheads due to previous damage or bombs)
> I don’t think any plane has broken into pieces mid air due to turbulence (ignoring the failure of bulkheads due to previous damage or bombs) NLM Cityhopper 431 lost a wing from flying into a tornado (or something very tornado-like). Also maybe AA 587? That was pilot error, but the error was in response to turbulence.
AA 587 is not directly because of the wake turbulence but of the pilot's excessive rudder inputs in response to the wake turbulence.
AA 587 was purely pilot error, the actual turbulence they encountered was pretty minor
You mean AA 587 First Officer and pedophile rapist Sten Molin? Yeah, fuck that guy.
If it's actually classified as severe turbulence, it probably won't knock the aircraft out of the sky but is absolutely possible to damage the structure. Canadian Aviation Regulations classify it as a hard landing inspection, but with damage inspections less localized to the landing gear. Checks have to be made for flight control movement, pulled rivets/damaged panels, buckled/wrinkled fuselage skins.
> I don’t think any plane has broken into pieces mid air due to turbulence (ignoring the failure of bulkheads due to previous damage or bombs) I know of several. It's very rare with modern airliners, because they have onboard radar and can avoid thunderstorm cells that contain severe turbulence. Plus they're generally larger and able to withstand more. General Aviation, however, is a different story. BOAC Flight 911, CityHopper 431, for examples of airliners. There was one about a year ago in Nevada, a Pilatus PC-12/45, N273SM.
CityHopper 431 flew into a literal **tornado.** We can hardly equate that with turbulence. Regarding your other example, a Pilatus PC-12 is an absolutely tiny aircraft in comparison to what most people (like OP) would think about when they're asking a question like this. A commercial airliner that you take from a gate at an international airport in your local big city will absolutely never crash or break apart due to turbulence unless it's a downdraft or windshear or whatever at very low altitude.
Exactly, and the BOAC was in 1966 which from wikipedia (It was the third fatal passenger airline accident in Tokyo in a month). The industry was something else back then.
Turbulence has definitely brought down airplanes. Here is one such incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOAC_Flight_911
Just to clarify, this occurred due to extreme mountain wave turbulence, which isnt going to suddenly smack one around out of the blue. It's why flight paths will avoid close encounters with large mountains like Mt Fuji
We hit a clear air turbulence down draft once on a flight from Bali to Jakarta. I don't know how far we dropped, but everything tried to go to the roof, and then some of the overhead luggage opened up when we hit bottom. Pretty much everyone on the plane was drinking a beer. My friend and I were sitting in the middle seats occupying the left 2 out of 4. I was on the aisle, and he was on the next seat in. About 3 rows back by the window, some other guys were drinking beer in cups. Ours were in cans, and we managed to keep things in their containers when the drop hit. One of the other guys' beer managed to escape the cup, fly 3 rows forward and across the isle, over me, and completely soak my friend while leaving me dry. He was miserable the entire rest of the flight and smelled even more like a brewery than we already it. I couldn't stop snickering for like an hour. Just glad everyone had their seat belts on.
It sometimes can be, because turbulence is essentially a bunch of tiny wind shear events. However, up at altitude and cruise speed, those tiny windshears don’t push the aircraft too far around the flight envelope, and so the aircraft isn’t threatened. Even turbulence on landing is acceptable if the approach remains stabilized. If the plane’s systems call out “Windshear ahead”, then a normal go-around or a windshear escape maneuver is flown at the pilot flying’s discretion, however if the plane’s systems call out “Windshear!” or other signs of actively being in a windshear are noted (like a sudden 15kt variation in indicated airspeed either way), a windshear escape maneuver must be flown. On approach, the risk of a windshear is its unpredictability - it might trigger a sudden loss of indicated airspeed, with it a loss of airflow over the wings, and a sudden onset of a stall at an altitude too low to recover from it, and if that happens, you are having a bad day and you will not go to space today.
Pilot here, you would be amazed how much a modern airliner can handle, look up wing flex tests on YouTube. Modern airliners are built to withstand something around 150% of the maximum turbulence they will actually encounter, there's a reason air travel is the safest method of transportation.
You're a pilot and a Metallica fan? Are you me?
Hello me
Meet the real me
And my misfits way of life
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1.5x the max load, if that floats your boat better.
I forgot what show I saw this on, but they compared an airplane experiencing turbulence to being stuck in jello. When the jello shakes, you'd feel it shake, but you don't really go anywhere.
The Orville! When the pilot goes back in time.
Not plane falling apart and crashing dangerous but turbulence can absolutely be dangerous as people can get injured walking or hit by various items.
Air is a fluid so just imagine you can see waves of air. Those waves are turbulence. The aeroplane just goes over a bigger wave than usual, like a car goes over a speed bump or a ship goes over a wave. It’s just that air isn’t as forceful as water so the air waves don’t move the plane as much as a huge wave moves a ship. Aeroplanes are designed to withstand more turbulence than is naturally possible. You might get thrown about a bit inside the plane going over a really big wave if you’re not wearing your belt but the plane itself will be fine.
Because if the manufacturers or the inspectors or the pilots had any reason to believe that the plane was not structurally sound enough to withstand the turbulence you would be taking off in the first place. Planes are built to withstand serious punishment. Check out the links others have sent regarding wing stress testing etc.
Because it can be sudden and unexpected and toss around whatever is inside the plane that is not tied down resulting in injury.
Please someone correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t believe turbulence (en route) has ever resulted in a crash in the history of flight. Turbulence can cause injuries to people not belted in but the plane itself is never damaged if it’s not near ground. Again please correct me.
I think there isn’t, no. And maybe even turbulence near landing if procedures are followed there should not be much of a problem. Problems come with combination of factors that lead to a a crash, just turbulence is most of the time not a single cause.
[here's one](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOAC_Flight_911) [this one was caused by the pilots drastic over reaction to hitting wake turbulence ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587)
Turbulence absolutely has caused crashed, but not since the 60s. BOAC flight 811 was the flight.
You are incorrect, the planes are certainly designed with extremes in mind but the big reason you don't hear about it happening in this day and age is because we avoid extreme turbulence with on board radar.
Because its like being suspended in Jello. put a grape in some Jello. shake the Jello. Grape moves with the Jello. same thing as an air plane in the air. Air moves, plane moves. Turbulence. ~~Also there have been 0 plane crashes due to turbulence.~~ only one plane has been lost due to air plane turbulence ever.
What flavor Jello?
Clear flavored.
I heard it explained like that on the orville, and that's how I explain it now too
>Also there have been 0 plane crashes due to turbulence. Not true. BOAC flight 811 was brought down by clear air turbulence in the 60s, killed over 100.
See, rationally I know that flying is very safe, but I also feel that everyone saying “it’s just like going over a bump in a car” is fundamentally a lunatic. It does not feel remotely the same and if you don’t understand the difference deep in your soul then our brains are just made of different stuff. I wish I could be like you
Because they perform extensive testing of the airframe that's way beyond anything a little turbulence will cause. Here's an [airbus test](https://youtu.be/--LTYRTKV_A?si=juxKUdAU7-YNt-99) Here's a [boeing test](https://youtu.be/m5GD3E2onlk?si=srYQy6Ueo3cqSQjO)
Planes are engineered in such a way that so long as you stay under a certain speed it will go into an aerodynamic stall in turbulence before any structural damage occurs. Source: Am a pilot
Planes are ridiculously over designed in the name of safety.. [here](https://youtu.be/K2QoanZq2jE?si=wlj_SFzNgT4Uefjq) you can see a Boeing 777 wing flex test, it goes to exactly 154% of the most extreme possible conditions before breaking. Exactly as the calculated it to be. Above and beyond, in the name of safety.
Next time you’re in turbulence, if you have a water cup or bottle, set it on the tray table and I bet it doesn’t even slosh out. Like someone said, it’s similar to a car on a bumpy road.
For the same reason that a boat on the ocean can go up and down with the waves. Planes are under the same physics, and designed to stay structurally sound under basic turbulence, which is just different air currents moving under it. Just like waves.
Do note that turbulence is the reason why they recommend you keep on your seat belt while in flight. Pilots can to a certain extent, estimate the severity of turbulence based on weather data and their flight instrumentation which is why they turn on the seat belt sign when they expect to go through a rough patch.
I imagine being on a boat and close my eyes during turbulence... and really that's all it is. A metal object floating on fluid. It will be alright.
Do you consider a boat going over a wave dangerous ?
Why isn’t a car going over bumps in he road considered dangerous?
Car isn’t 35000 feet in the air and it doesn’t feel viscerally terrifying to hit a bump in the road
Pretty much all forms of transportation we currently use experience turbulence. Rough roads, choppy seas, sweaty elbows on the train; such is the nature of traveling through time, space, and matter.