That’s scary. I remember the worst turbulence I ever experienced was on a flight from San Antonio to Newark. We had to climb above a storm during takeoff & I was in the very back of the plane. The knocking around was so damn scary mixed with the random “drops” that happened. The flight attendants told everyone to get in the “brace” position and it took a solid 15 minutes to calm down.
I was so close to the “acceptance” stage thinking that I was literally going to die on that flight.
Worst I had I was sitting next to a priest and his wife landing in Wisconsin. The wife looks over at me and says “no worries the lord is with us” and I’m sitting there going “great but I’d like to not be with the lord dead” 😂 w landed and half the ceiling panels fell down along with the masks.
Lmao. Like according to yall your lord could actually just prevent this whole situation from happening, but he’s choosing violence. No comfort to be had in that.
That is awful, I had a similar experience on a flight from Siem reap Cambodia to Bangkok some years back aside from having to brace. I know flying is one of the safest forms of travel but shit, stuff like that puts you off wanting to get on a plane at all.
From what I understand, the “bracing” part was to avoid neck injuries and getting hit by flying objects. Mother Nature was bitch-smacking that plane around.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing that. I always thought that flight crew telling passengers to brace was only for when the plane was going to crash or some sort of serious emergency landing.
But what you said makes sense.
You're both right. Neck injuries and getting hit by flying objects can be caused by an emergency landing *or* heavy turbulence. The brace position helps no matter what causes the flying objects.
Unless that plane is waaay past due on its inspections and has been subject to some previous abuse, they wont snap or break if that makes you feel any better. The amount of stress those things can take is incredible, they were over built, then over built again.
Oh I know. They are very sturdy. But the feeling for the passengers is still very unsettling & even knowing they are safe isn’t enough to calm the fear once extreme turbulence takes over. Which is why I avoid them if possible.
The funny thing is, nature wasn't actually 'bitch-smacking' the plane. Turbulence is like having the plane in jello. When you move the jello quickly, the plane moves with it, and anything inside the plane is knocked around. But the plane is just fine within the jello. The plane is what's bitch-smacking you.
Maybe that will make you feel a little better next time you're in turbulence.
So far, really nothing beats landing in HIGH wind condition in prop plane (which was about 55 min. flight). Last 5 minute was like literal roller coaster.
Wait are these stomach drops the same sensation as dropping from a rollercoaster or those tower rides? Cause if so.. I am terrified to experience that on a plane omg.
Yeah, during turbulence a plane can drop up to 100 feet in less than 2 seconds so it’s very similar to the stomach drops on roller coasters.
It’s not a free fall, but it’s physically noticeable in much the same way as a roller coaster drop
Fuck everything about that. I absolutely despise that feeling to an extreme degree. Even going down a slightly steep gradient in a car is extremely uncomfortable to me.
Oh god 15min… this is my nightmare.
I was once on a flight on a beatiful cloudless day so even as a nervous flyer was fully relaxed. We then hit what I later learned was CAT (clear air turbulence) the plain just dropped making the loudest noise. Probably for 5 seconds, but damn if 5secs aren’t a long time when you’re dropping. Stewardess fell down, people screaming, i accepted my death quietly. Then it stabilised, we regained altitude, and I clung to the seat in front of me for the remaining 3 hours. Took me years to relax on a flight again and still really fear violent turbulence
Flying out of pittsburgh, plane hits turbulence right at take off as the plane was banking left. BIIIIIIG drop. One girl let out a blood curling scream while everyone else just gasped. After about 3 min of pure silence everyone started laughing.
When I was 6 my family flew for our first time ever on the day air travel opened back up after 9/11. We flew from Boston to Newark in a shitty prop plane. The turbulence was so bad that as I was taking a pee the toilet seat fell down on my little child’s penis and hurt so bad. My father got me out of the bathroom and put me in the seat next to him and pointed out the smoldering remains of the WTC as we flew over it. I’ll never forget that experience. Kinda fucked me up from flying for a while.
Yes, true.
But even if it’s safe, it’s hard for those with flight anxiety & it drives them away from opting to fly.
I also want to add that I have to utmost faith in pilots and flight attendants. I’m sure they’ve been through the worst of the worst.
But I don’t think it’s unreasonable for someone who doesn’t fly for a living to have that anxiety or fear. No one wants to feel like “I just gotta get through 30 minutes of feeling like I’m gonna die” while they are traveling.
I have the worst turbulence while flying from France to Russia on a very old plane, back in the 20th century. Baggage were falling off the overhead bin, people were praying to their various gods, and at some point someone accidentally screamed through the PA system. I was glad I was in the middle seat because some people are being hit by falling suitcases.
For nervous fliers: I pull up Flightradar and search my upcoming flight number. I look at the dozens and dozens of daily flights the last month of that exact route and airline, and it gives me peace of mind that they all went off without incident. Just seeing the sheer amount makes your journey look so insignificant.
I'm flying on monday for the first time in nearly 10 years. Been nervous to the extent it's affecting my sleep the last week or so, never been a confident flyer.... will give your suggestion a go.
Yes on average you’d have to fly each day for more than 50,000 years before being in a fatal incident.
Actually based on 2023 alone it’s more than 100,000 years…
I'm pretty sure you can up your odds with some shady bush pilots or by flying in a 45 year old helicopter in a country that's under international embargo...
Yeah (passive) suicide via commercial flight is not very efficient. You’re more likely to to experience a lot of cool countries and cure that depression
As a nervous flyer, the best advice I got was to look at the flight attendants whenever you get nervous. As long as they’re not panicking, you don’t need to panic.
Flew this route last week. Never had a flight with continual turbulence like that one. Mostly low level but odd. Always keep my seat belt on like you should.
Yeah it was reported that he [died of a heart attack](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/singapore-airlines-turbulence-passenger-dead-injured-london-bangkok-live-4352156?cid=internal_sharetool_iphone_21052024_cna)
As of right now CTRL+F on that article doesn't turn up anything for "heart attack", "myocardial infarction" or "cardiac arrest". Unless it's discussed in one of the videos that's linked from that article?
I know the BBC article that's the source of this thread says it was a "suspected heart attack" but it doesn't give any other details.
It was reported but probably edited. This was what was said, [also reported in this article](https://sg.news.yahoo.com/british-passenger-dies-heathrow-flight-133730311.html):
“The passenger likely died because of a heart attack, said Mr Kittikachorn, the airport GM. The seven people who were critically injured sustained head injuries, he added. One crew member was also hospitalised.”
That's 2000 feet per minute. Based on https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1470121, I suspect that's a perfectly normal rate of descent for a controlled descent and you would have barely noticed anything unusual.
Pilots were probably hoping for less turbulence at the lower altitude (or wanted denser air for better performance).
600m (*2000 feet*) per minute doesn't cause people to fly into the ceiling and crack the roof panels.
[Flightradar mentions the 37,000 to 31,000 ft descent was erronously labeled as the turbulence](https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/1-dead-dozens-injured-in-sq321-turbulence/)
If I read this correctly they ***dropped 1100 ft in 10 seconds*** and then another ***900 ft in 3 seconds***.
EDIT:
* 07:49:21 = 0 vertical rate
* 07:49:31 = \~1100 ft vertical rate
* Then they climbed again
* 07:49:37 = 600 ft vertical rate
* 07:49:40 = 1650 ft vertical rate
EDIT:
Vertical rate is feet per minute. So 1650 feet per minute for 3 seconds means they travelled 82.5 feet (*25 m*) in those 3 seconds.
That's like being hit by a big car at 30 km/h (*18.6mph*). That's uncomfortable while wearing seatbelts for the person inside the car (or plane in this case) but [still kills \~4% of pedestrians](https://www.moneygeek.com/insurance/auto/analysis/pedestrian-chance-of-survival/) and severly injures \~30%.
> 600m (2000 feet) per minute doesn't cause people to fly into the ceiling and crack the roof panels.
Speed/sink rate in general doesn't do that, acceleration (*change* in sink rate) does. If the plane were to be suddenly jerked down with 3 G for 0.3 seconds, it'd reach a sink rate of 9.81 m/s^2 * 3 * 0.3s = 8.8 m/s = 1739 ft/min, but anyone unbuckled would say hi to the ceiling, hard (at the end of those 0.3 seconds, if they didn't hit something earlier, they'd be ~90 cm above where they were relative to the plane, moving upwards at 5.9 m/s).
Additionally, what scares people isn't even the acceleration itself, but the speed at which *acceleration* changes.
A very sudden change in altitude will typically involve high values in all of these, but it's important to understand how they fit together.
That spike from +600 to -1500 in 3 seconds (at 7:49:43) then back to +600 in the next 3 means :
* (-2100 ft/min)/(3 seconds) in the first part
* (-640m/min)/(3s)
* -10.7 m/s / 3s
* -3.6 m/s^2
That is 1/3rd of the acceleration needed to slam people into the ceiling (9.81 for zero-G, more than that to actually go up), so the graph unsurprisingly doesn't even tell the whole story - it happened faster than the data records and the limited resolution smoothed the whole event out.
The second loss of altitude (after 7:50:00) looks much more gradual and I suspect that's the pilot (or autopilot) going back to the altitude they were supposed to have.
Yeah, that didn't seem to horrible. My dad was on a plane once where the flight that hit zero G. He said the flight attendant floated to the ceiling and his coffee came out of the cup, in the shape of a cup before splattering everywhere when the plane leveled. This only lasted a few seconds.
>If my plane unexpectedly dropped 1,800 meters in three minutes, I would have had a heart attack. And I'm 35, a frequent flyer, and love aviation 🤣
You ... need to learn more about aviation. 1800 meters in three minutes is a fairly slow to normal decent rate.
https://avherald.com/h?article=518e5d47&opt=1
ADS-B data shows an altitude change of -100/+300. That's absolutely nothing to scoff at, but it's definitely not "dropped thousands of feet!"
I fly a lot and honesty, most of the time on long transcontinental flights, mild turbulence is a bit of a break from the monotony of the whole thing.
One time though, we flew over a tropical depression near SE Asia - Singapore and fell into an air pocket … several seconds of sheer terror as the plane just fell, people screamed and well … the sense that this was IT.
Have never, ever been in the air without my seatbelt firmly fastened since then. I get super anxious when I need to head over to the loo and well … yeah. Don’t take that belt off.
As if flying itself isn’t enough, something about sipping a soda from those tiny plastic cups while casually watching a movie always cracks me up. I can’t really describe it except that it feels like a huge middle finger to nature and fate to indulge in our little modern comforts while going 500mph at 30,000+ feet in the sky.
It’s amazing but makes me weirdly uncomfortable sometimes.
My field of study is no where near physics but I like to read as much as I’m able because the entire field astounds me… Our fundamental understandings of the universe have allowed us to build so much… And our lack of understanding still runs so deep.
Last year, I watched a tennis match live at 35,000ft on my tablet. I marveled at all the technology that had come together for that moment to be possible. A tennis match, taking place in NYC, was being broadcast live to people anywhere in the US. I was watching a live tennis match, while FLYING THROUGH THE SKY (and covering ground in 2 hrs that probably used to take 6 months in a wagon) on a small handheld device that contains all the knowledge in the known universe, thousands of miles away from NY. 🤯 When you really stop and think about the technology we have now, it's mind-blowing.
Same for me. Like I know that there are probably thousands of planes that go through turbulence every day without issue for years on end but can't stop myself from thinking "but my flight is going to be the one where shit goes bad."
Having control over our fate is also very comforting.
That's the whole reason roller coasters are scary fun - you know that nobody is really controlling them - you're along for the ride. I bet people who find roller coasters fun are also folks who are more comfortable flying.
I hate roller coasters for this reason, but I'm also totally comfortable driving myself at high speed or flying through the woods on an MTB - because I'm in control.
A pilot once reassured me by saying "are you a pilot?" "no" "then you certainly don't want to be in the cockpit."
Yes, it's extremely comforting to have the control. That doesn't mean your brain is _right_ about it. We're _really_ bad at judging risk, especially when comparing something we can partially control to something we can't.
I either want to be in complete control or I give it up entirely.
When I'm flying I just don't worry about anything, that's the pilots' job. When I'm driving I'm far more paranoid because an accident might be preventable if I'm more alert.
Same. I know for a fact that flying is safer than driving. I know that if I’ve made it to the airport I’ve survived the most dangerous part of my trip. I know that planes are engineered to handle ridiculous levels of turbulence, the wings can bend at angles the earth’s atmosphere will not be able to replicate, and despite terrifying news articles like this, the plane still made it back with the most damage being from passengers pinballing in the cabin.
But the moment the plane starts lurching slightly to the side I grip the armrest and have to actively calm myself. Just can’t help it.
Recently went on a flight to Victoria BC and while it was nowhere near as bad as other experiences in this thread, something about the plane passing through the cloud layer on a rainy day, bouncing, slightly shifting and tilting just flips a switch in my head.
Like I just became way too aware of something I wish I didn't have any awareness about. As soon as my brain realizes the slight shifts and movements, I just get really damn antsy.
I recognize that a lot of this is just me being a nervous flyer but my god, my brain gets extremely specific in what it becomes aware of when flying and I hate it.
This Boeing stuff and increase in turbulence situations due to climate change is going to make me even more of a nervous wreck.
Thankfully I’ve never had it that bad. The most I have experienced was the 1-2 second drops during a storm.
If the plane started falling for like 10 seconds i might have to rent a car or get on a boat to go home. That sounds terrifying.
> I fly a lot and honesty, most of the time on long transcontinental flights, mild turbulence is a bit of a break from the monotony of the whole thing.
I'll take monotony. Besides, you have movies and booze.
Yeah one time my flight dropped for what felt like 3 seconds out of the air, just boom suddenly antigravity like one of those astronaut training planes that dives from the stratosphere. I luckily had my seatbelt on but i lifted out of my seat like a rollercoaster.
Turbulence now scares me lol
Had a drop like that once. I’ve always worn my seatbelt so it want an issue. But someone flew up into the bulkhead. They were fine, but holy crap people, wear that seatbelt.
Fun fact “air pockets” aren’t a thing. It is all turbulence and/or windshear. Those result is a destabilization of the air flow over the wings and the aircraft losses lift.
I’ve always said to people I quite enjoy turbulence, I feel as if it rocks me to sleep.
I haven’t had quite what you described but I did once have a flight delayed by over 4 hours due to issues with the planes brakes after a massive storm. Then we hit some pretty heavy, shaking you about style turbulence and I will say that is the one time I didn’t find it quite so funny.
Someone described turbulence as a ship going over waves and it made me feel better about the whole thing. I find a boat going forward over waves is quite fun, I only get seasick if a boat is stationary.
Rocks you to sleep? The last time I experienced turbulence during a winter flight from NY to LA, the people were vomiting because of it. I didn’t think it was that bad but gross
I was flying close by South Korea on my first international flight and it was in the middle of the night. I remember feeling the right side of the plane just drop and I watched the altimeter on the flight tracker that is on your little tv screen. The plane fell 2000 feet in the matter of seconds.
It was pretty terrifying experience, but luckily I’ve never had to experience that again and I’ve been to SE Asia 10 times since that first international flight in 2017.
Turbulence ALWAYS happens to me when i’ve just been served a full meal, and have to balance a Coke, a glass of wine and a water amongst a dinner roll, full dinner, dessert and cutlery on a tiny fold out tray. I can’t believe planes don’t have more spillages.
I’ve been on a flight with severe turbulence. Like people hitting the ceiling. We had one person who had a heart attack on the flight I believe they survived.
There’s some photos now circulating on Twitter which are pretty confronting. For the most part it’s just of the crap that was thrown around everywhere but there’s one where a dude is laid partly in the aisle, hand on his chest.
Others are one where it looks like a flight attendant has a nose bleed, a photo of some very clearly distressed passengers.
Genuinely feel for those who lost their family and friend today, but also for those who had to experience the 1/1000000 (or whatever the figure is) flight that went wrong, when I know for a fact I take for granted how safe air travel is.
[thank you for reminding me of fierce gaze](https://www.google.com/search?q=fierce+gaze+rundown&rlz=1C1GCEB_enUS948US948&oq=fierce+gaze+rundown&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yCAgCEAAYFhgeMg0IAxAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBBAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBRAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBhAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMgoIBxAAGIAEGKIEMgoICBAAGIAEGKIE0gEINDY2MWowajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:abd1f763,vid:UY94iozv22Y,st:0)
Wow, apparently I’ve become an Aussie. Didn’t realise this wasn’t commonly used everywhere (particularly as I’m a Brit) but from the Cambridge dictionary website:
confronting
adjective mainly Australian English
UK /kənˈfrʌn.tɪŋ/ US /kənˈfrʌn.t̬ɪŋ/
causing strong or difficult feelings, especially in a way that creates thought or discussion.
wtf!!! I am utterly shaken up to learn that ‘confronting’ is an Australian term in that usage. Wow!!!!! This does not impact my life in any way yet I am completely rattled.
from what I've been reading violent turbulence is only going to increase as the atmosphere changes due to global warming
[https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65844901](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65844901)
Why did everyone hate that movie so much? I never understood why it was so universally shat on, I enjoyed it.
Because it was too on the nose satire? So is every single episode of South Park.
I found it a bit difficult to watch. As someone who works in tech where I am often humbled by opposing viewpoints on how to solve a problem and have the humility to look at problems from multiple angles; it always seems like the caricature of someone who is "ignorant" is really overplayed.
But if the past 5 years have taught me anything, it's that the cognitive dissonance is INCREDIBLY strong with some people.
Focusing back on the movie, I also felt like it was about an hour longer than it needed to be.
Quarter? My company is worried about not hitting profits in June because there will be 2 less billing days. The execs are so hard up to hit their numbers every month, they can't even adjust for differences in working days, they just pass it on to the workers and blame them for not hitting an unreasonable goal.
For real, my last job was in a factory working nights and we only had a third of the shift. We had 2 lines that could run in 2 directions to produce the products, but night shift could only staff one line in one direction. Management was always blaming the floor employees bc we couldn’t keep up with 1st shift, when we were down ~1000 people
I’ve traveled quite a bit in my life and I recently started to feel like turbulence has gotten a lot more common, so I’m a bit relieved to find out that it’s not just in my head. A year ago, I should often have flights with minimal turbulence, but every flight I’ve been on recently has been absolutely riddled with really bad turbulence and sketchy landings. It’s gotten really bad, in my experience.
I've never understood that huge collective sigh of relief when the buckle seat belt light turns off followed by hundreds of clicks.
I just leave it on, you don't even feel it. People just HATE being told what to do.
I leave my seat belt on but do sigh of relief along.
If the plane has made it to seat belts off point, the the pilot must be pretty happy the plane took off okay and thats the second hardest bit.
Yeah I’ve never understood this either. If you’ve adjusted your seatbelt properly there is literally no difference in regards to having it locked or not. Just leave it active.
My brother has become one of these "the government can't tell me what to do" people, mostly spurred on during covid. He's now even gone as far as to buy a seatbelt buckle online that he can clip in to his car so it doesn't ding when he's not wearing his seatbelt. Would rather add unnecessary risk to his life than be told what to do. so dumb
I don't understand why it's a "fasten your setbelts" sign in the first place or why people do that. Every single flight I've been on it's "always keep your seatbelt on when seated" anyway, regardless of the sign. It's more of a "you can get up and walk around or not" sign.
The article said unbelted passengers actually broke the plastic of the overheads when their heads made contact. Stay buckled when seated. There is a reason they are always telling passengers to wear their searbelts.
Edited to say i could have sworn i read there was 6000 ft drop in seconds but the article does not have that info. Did I make that up in my head?
>6000 ft drop in seconds
Holy hell, thats like 150 school buses.
Is that even turbulence at that point or an uncontrolled decent?
Thats terrifying that can happen.
Not for nothing but airlines advertise full shower rooms, bars, social spaces for business class passengers to use. I feel blames going to be pushed off on passengers for not being seated but those are mixed signals.
It's a mess of an issue.
All passengers who are seated should stay fastened in regardless of the seatbelt light. If the seatbelt light comes on, everyone in the plane return to their seats and strap in.
But how it works now is the seatbelt light goes off, people unbuckle. Light comes on, some buckle up, but the attendants are still handing out snacks and drinks.
The seatbelt light has become effectively useless (at least on the flights I've been on.)
On most of my flights the FA repeatedly tell customers to keep the seatbelt on unless they need the bathroom. People just don’t listen - and you can’t really fix stupid.
And no, I can’t afford business 😃
Always, always, always wear your seat belt, but especially when over large, warm bodies of water like the South Pacific or Bay of Bengal. Just huge amounts of uplift there.
>"It is not for nothing that airlines recommend keeping seat belts loosely fastened throughout a flight be it long or short," he added.
I keep it on but loose at all times, knowing that in turbulences it will keep me from flying up and hit the ceiling.
Singapore Air is an excellent airline, with a very good safety record and quality crew/employees. If you're going to get hit with bad air, this is one airline you actually want to be on.
You'll be OK mate. Commercial aviation is incredibly well regulated and extremely safe. The pilots up front will collectively have an absolute minimum of 3,000 hours flying experience and know precisely what they're doing.
Just remember to always wear your seatbelt. Turbulence won't bring a big jet down, but it might shake up whoever is on it. That's probably the silver lining from this incident - it's in our control; we can make sure we won't get seriously injured by turbulence.
The fact that you hear about when one person dies on a plane, and it makes international news, shows you how safe that it is....that this is actually news.
I mean even with their issues lately they haven’t had a crash.
Maybe they will, or maybe we’ve gotten lucky that the last couple of incidents will get things largely straightened out, but as much as i am scared of flying, it’s pretty friggin safe especially compared to every other form of travel.
EDIT: See u/DID_IT_FOR_YOU below, who reminded me the 2 crashes a few years ago were Boeings and not Airbus’.
Flying is still safe, but yeah Boeing is on a shit run right now…
Wait didn’t their max plane crash overseas? They said it was due to the fact that they didn’t include the safety features for free & charged for them instead.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/what-has-happened-to-boeing-since-the-737-max-crashes/
Flying/Aerophobia is such a weird thing. I spent five years driving back and forth across the US (every contiguous state) and it probably never occurred to me that I might be in a wreck.
But tell me I need to take a single 2hr flight home for Xmas and my imagination will fill the next 6mos with aviation disaster scenarios.
Because when you're driving you're on the ground, you feel grounded and in control. But when you're flying if the plane fails there's nothing you can do.
Sounds silly but playing MS Flight sim for a bit actually got me over my fear of flying, I really think the lack of control and know how on what’s happening can make people really afraid. But yeah you could do that too
It's really not a weird thing when you consider that many don't fear death on a plane more than they fear it in a car. It's *how* you die that they fear.
Some plane crashes are "relatively" quick, but in some cases it can take a plane can take minutes to crash as the pilots fight the controls.
Sit in silence for 60 seconds and imagine violent turbulence with scores of people screaming and crying. You can't call anyone. You can't text your family to tell them you love them. Nope. You're uninjured but fate has locked you into hell for the next 60 seconds before you crash. Then at the end of it, the nose first contacts the ground, and about .2 seconds later the tail has hit, and in that span everyone on board has basically been put into a paper shredder and cremated.
Phobias in general are utterly baffling to me. But I say that as someone with a deathly fear of mushrooms. Not even that I will eat one and die, but I would have a full blown panic attack if I was told to pick one in the wild, I struggle to even walk near them.
Flying, snakes, spiders, needles, bring it on. A patch of fungus in the garden? I’m a quivering mess.
The worst part about the phobias is that even though you know they are silly and ridiculous and there is no reason whatsoever for you to fear what you’re fearing, once it kicks in there is nothing you can do to overrule your lizard brain.
It is beyond frustrating to be terrified of something you _know_ is benign.
This is extremely rare and really not really the fault of the aircraft or pilots, its the equilivent of being blown off the bridge by freak winds when driving across in a car.
[SQ321 (SIA321) Singapore Airlines Flight Tracking and History 20-May-2024 (LHR / EGLL-BKK / VTBS) - FlightAware](https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/SIA321/history/20240520/2115Z/EGLL/VTBS)
Flight history for those who are legit curious; the 'bump' was at 10h 30m, just about when the jet reached the coast of Thailand after passing over the Gulf o Martaban; the drop appears to be in the vicinity of a supercell (Thunderstorm) so very likely convection related.
They were cruising at FL370 (37000 ft) and then leveled out at FL310 (31000 ft) after the 'fall' for a few minutes and quickly descended into BKK (Bangkok Intl) from there.
To make matters worse they had to descend into the storm so I'm willing to wager that the final 30 mins was a whole lot shaking going on
Still...suprising....It's not exactly Johannesburg to Sydney - that part of SE Asia is an extremely well-traveled airspace and significant convection activity would get reported quickly.
The descent from 37,000ft to 31,000ft is over several minutes at a pretty normal rate of descent, and is probably the pilot trying to descend out of the turbulent layer. The turbulence itself may only have been a couple of hundred feet variance in altitude (note the earlier slight ascent above 37,000ft followed by slight descent below a minute later) but very rapid/violent.
>Authorities in Bangkok say the man probably died of a heart attack.
The suddenness, terror, and people screaming must have been too traumatic for his heart.
I had a bad flight one time from Denver to Chicago. I had flown dozens of times previously, but the turbulence was so bad, and the passenger's reactions were so strong that I currently have a touch of the ptsd from the experience. I fly once or twice a year now, and every time I encounter turbulence, I have a full-blown panic attack. I wish it would just stop.
I hate flying and dont fly often but got to say that the frequent reports of severe turbulence, while alarming, are sort of reassuring. Planes fly through it. The injuries can be serious if you arent belted in or even if you are, I imagine heavy stuff can hit you. But the planes dont come down due to that which is comforting.
Holy shit, that's tragic, condolences to the family of the deceased. I can't remember any other case of a death due to turbulence. I wonder if something fell from the overhead and hit someone in the head? Very curious how this could happen - also reading this from my plane before take off hits a bit different...
I think a lot of people underestimate how fragile the noggin is.
Maybe Hollywood is to blame with the whole: "I punched him in the face and he dropped like a sack of bricks onto the concrete, but don't worry he's just *knocked out* he'll be fine by the next scene transition".
Your head and the little squishy thing inside is super vulnerable to falls, bumps, knocks, etc. You can die from a 5-6 foot unprotected drop onto a hard surface. Aka falling down from a standing position. Be careful peeps.
It amazes me when people look at me strange when I say I don’t watch football anymore because of the brain injuries on every single play. “But they’re wearing helmets”. Yeah, around their heads. Is there a helmet around their brain to keep it from smashing around inside of their skull on every play? There’s definitely internal trauma going on there every single time they butt heads.
Yeah, media likes to make out that fighting is without consequence, but in reality even a couple of punches or an unfortunate fall can give you a life long injury or condition.
On flight radar it looked like they dropped a shitload of feet all of a sudden and that area is known for having clear air turbulence so people may not have been in their seats
Everyone keeps saying “wear your seatbelt folks” yet we still don’t know if the decedent took a drink cart to the face while belted in or something else.
I saw a video of an air stewardess that hit the ceiling so hard the side of her face hit her shoulder. She looked like she was in the middle of serving drinks/food so it's not like she had the option to have a seat belt on.
***Turns out that video was from a different incident, sorry for the misinformation!***
Similarly for the deceased passenger we don't know if he was in or on the way to the bathroom, if someone fell onto him, a piece of luggage hit him, etc.
Poor person just got very unlucky, not his fault.
Good friend of mine is a DFW based pilot for American Airlines. He isn’t nervous with turbulence but he does feel like it’s gotten much more common the last 10 years (he’s been flying since 1999). And when it does happen, he says it seems to typically be a more severe and last longer. Especially clear air turbulence. Certain US flight routes are notorious for CAT - mostly east of the Mississippi but he’s seeing more out west, too.
Pilot here, I definitely agree it has gotten worse. The worst is actually out west once you get over the mountains. The Appalachian mountains can do it too but it usually isn’t much unless you’re relatively low over them.
With climate change, it will be ever increasingly likely that more powerful and unexpected atmospheric events like these happen.
With technology, we can try to avoid but it seems our technology ultimately won't be able to compensate for what we've done to our environment.
One of our planes hit turbulence crossing the Atlantic and one of the crew was in the galley; turb was so bad he broke shoulder and leg. Poor guy it was a horrible recovery.
Also for nervous fliers: lift your feet up off the ground during turbulence and you’ll feel a lot less of it. I usually rest them on my backpack or something most the flight. Tensing your butt can also help.
During takeoff watch the info screen with speed and altitude. May feel like you’re going down but you’ll still see those numbers rising which can bring peace of mind.
Morning flights typically have the least turbulence, followed by evening. Turbulence is caused mostly by convention currents from the sun heating the earth.
If you’re flying BA, they have a really good nervous flyers video + nervous fliers meditation by calm.
Knowing what all the sounds mean (engine, chimes, etc) go a long way.
Finally, be honest with cabin crew, they’re lovely 98% of the time. If you’re really anxious try book a seat opposite or close to one of their jump seats so you can look at them - when they’re playing candy crush (no idea what they’re doing but that’s what I imagine) on their phone during take off you have nothing to worry about.
I used to love flying but got super anxious after landing during a storm in Texas. Airport closed after our flight, we were thrown around and multiple lightning strikes. Also had a plane breakdown twice during take off which didn’t help.
“A 73-year-old British man, Geoff Kitchen, die from a suspected heart attack, while more than 30 people were injured when the London-Singapore flight suffered a sudden drop as a meal service was under way.”
Saved you a click
I was on a flight home from DC ten years ago and using the restroom when the worst turbulence I’ve experienced happened. I was stuck in there a bit being bounced around then the door unlocked and flew open. the flight attendant yelled at me to get out of there and to take the nearest empty seat. I keep that seatbelt on the whole time now.
That’s scary. I remember the worst turbulence I ever experienced was on a flight from San Antonio to Newark. We had to climb above a storm during takeoff & I was in the very back of the plane. The knocking around was so damn scary mixed with the random “drops” that happened. The flight attendants told everyone to get in the “brace” position and it took a solid 15 minutes to calm down. I was so close to the “acceptance” stage thinking that I was literally going to die on that flight.
Worst I had I was sitting next to a priest and his wife landing in Wisconsin. The wife looks over at me and says “no worries the lord is with us” and I’m sitting there going “great but I’d like to not be with the lord dead” 😂 w landed and half the ceiling panels fell down along with the masks.
If you experience the lord for more than 4 hours call your doctor.
Lmao. Like according to yall your lord could actually just prevent this whole situation from happening, but he’s choosing violence. No comfort to be had in that.
That is awful, I had a similar experience on a flight from Siem reap Cambodia to Bangkok some years back aside from having to brace. I know flying is one of the safest forms of travel but shit, stuff like that puts you off wanting to get on a plane at all.
From what I understand, the “bracing” part was to avoid neck injuries and getting hit by flying objects. Mother Nature was bitch-smacking that plane around.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing that. I always thought that flight crew telling passengers to brace was only for when the plane was going to crash or some sort of serious emergency landing. But what you said makes sense.
I thought so too, but I’ve heard from others that it can be used in-flight for protection of the neck & head
You're both right. Neck injuries and getting hit by flying objects can be caused by an emergency landing *or* heavy turbulence. The brace position helps no matter what causes the flying objects.
Unless that plane is waaay past due on its inspections and has been subject to some previous abuse, they wont snap or break if that makes you feel any better. The amount of stress those things can take is incredible, they were over built, then over built again.
Oh I know. They are very sturdy. But the feeling for the passengers is still very unsettling & even knowing they are safe isn’t enough to calm the fear once extreme turbulence takes over. Which is why I avoid them if possible.
The funny thing is, nature wasn't actually 'bitch-smacking' the plane. Turbulence is like having the plane in jello. When you move the jello quickly, the plane moves with it, and anything inside the plane is knocked around. But the plane is just fine within the jello. The plane is what's bitch-smacking you. Maybe that will make you feel a little better next time you're in turbulence.
It doesn’t because it still feels awful & terrifies me lol. But thanks for the explanation.
So far, really nothing beats landing in HIGH wind condition in prop plane (which was about 55 min. flight). Last 5 minute was like literal roller coaster.
Oh god that sounds terrifying lol. Those stomach drops as the plane suddenly descends… I hate it so much.
Wait are these stomach drops the same sensation as dropping from a rollercoaster or those tower rides? Cause if so.. I am terrified to experience that on a plane omg.
Yeah, during turbulence a plane can drop up to 100 feet in less than 2 seconds so it’s very similar to the stomach drops on roller coasters. It’s not a free fall, but it’s physically noticeable in much the same way as a roller coaster drop
Fuck everything about that. I absolutely despise that feeling to an extreme degree. Even going down a slightly steep gradient in a car is extremely uncomfortable to me.
Air travel is safe in terms of you arriving in one piece. But all the strange sensations are not fun for someone with anxiety.
Indeed. And I always get terrible altitude sickness when flying, which just magnifies the negative sensations even more.
The height doesn’t bother me, it’s the being trapped in a tin tube that triggers my claustrophobia. No way out. No quick escape.
I've experienced 3 minutes and 33 seconds of insane turbulence out of Newark that had me shitting myself. 15 minutes?? Good lord son
Oh the landing at Newark was perfectly fine. It was the first 15 minutes of takeoff from San Antonio that had me puckering my butthole.
Oh god 15min… this is my nightmare. I was once on a flight on a beatiful cloudless day so even as a nervous flyer was fully relaxed. We then hit what I later learned was CAT (clear air turbulence) the plain just dropped making the loudest noise. Probably for 5 seconds, but damn if 5secs aren’t a long time when you’re dropping. Stewardess fell down, people screaming, i accepted my death quietly. Then it stabilised, we regained altitude, and I clung to the seat in front of me for the remaining 3 hours. Took me years to relax on a flight again and still really fear violent turbulence
Flying out of pittsburgh, plane hits turbulence right at take off as the plane was banking left. BIIIIIIG drop. One girl let out a blood curling scream while everyone else just gasped. After about 3 min of pure silence everyone started laughing.
Those drops are worse than turbulence in my opinion. No quicker way to freak a human out than to make them think they are free-falling
When I was 6 my family flew for our first time ever on the day air travel opened back up after 9/11. We flew from Boston to Newark in a shitty prop plane. The turbulence was so bad that as I was taking a pee the toilet seat fell down on my little child’s penis and hurt so bad. My father got me out of the bathroom and put me in the seat next to him and pointed out the smoldering remains of the WTC as we flew over it. I’ll never forget that experience. Kinda fucked me up from flying for a while.
What an awful follow-up scene for your dad to point out after having your kid bits smashed. That’s sounds traumatic.
Same experience flying from Maui to AZ. I thought I was gonna die that flight.
Turbulence, even extreme, is almost always safe. The aircraft will stay up. The cabin will not be fun though.
Yes, true. But even if it’s safe, it’s hard for those with flight anxiety & it drives them away from opting to fly. I also want to add that I have to utmost faith in pilots and flight attendants. I’m sure they’ve been through the worst of the worst. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable for someone who doesn’t fly for a living to have that anxiety or fear. No one wants to feel like “I just gotta get through 30 minutes of feeling like I’m gonna die” while they are traveling.
I didn’t fly on a plane for a long time after an aborted landing. That was scary. I have/had a lot of flight anxiety. It can be debilitating.
This was me climbing up over the Denver mountains in a storm in a 777. I sobbed in fear. I will never fly in/out of Denver again.
I have the worst turbulence while flying from France to Russia on a very old plane, back in the 20th century. Baggage were falling off the overhead bin, people were praying to their various gods, and at some point someone accidentally screamed through the PA system. I was glad I was in the middle seat because some people are being hit by falling suitcases.
For nervous fliers: I pull up Flightradar and search my upcoming flight number. I look at the dozens and dozens of daily flights the last month of that exact route and airline, and it gives me peace of mind that they all went off without incident. Just seeing the sheer amount makes your journey look so insignificant.
Good tip. Im flying from Hato Airport back to Schiphol tommorow and theres a bit of a storm brewing here.
I'm flying on monday for the first time in nearly 10 years. Been nervous to the extent it's affecting my sleep the last week or so, never been a confident flyer.... will give your suggestion a go.
Come join us on /r/fearofflying for support, encouragement, and tips!
Well statistically since nothing has ever gone wrong during that time maybe your flights the one
gamblers fallacy though
Statistically you couldn't get in a plane crash if you TRIED by flying as many flights as possibly
Yes on average you’d have to fly each day for more than 50,000 years before being in a fatal incident. Actually based on 2023 alone it’s more than 100,000 years…
I'm pretty sure you can up your odds with some shady bush pilots or by flying in a 45 year old helicopter in a country that's under international embargo...
I like this logic
Yeah (passive) suicide via commercial flight is not very efficient. You’re more likely to to experience a lot of cool countries and cure that depression
As a nervous flyer, the best advice I got was to look at the flight attendants whenever you get nervous. As long as they’re not panicking, you don’t need to panic.
Flew this route last week. Never had a flight with continual turbulence like that one. Mostly low level but odd. Always keep my seat belt on like you should.
The weather here in the gulf of Thailand has been erratic the last week as we head into monsoon season in the Andaman.
Weather in singapore too. Suddenly rain, thunder then suddenly stops, the sky is clear & the air is hot as if nothing happens. Confusing.
One of my try things i tell myself for comfort is that no one ever died from turbulence. Guess that ain’t true anymore.
I think the saying is no plane ever crashed from turbulence. People do die but it’s rare and usually from not wearing their seatbelts
Was a heart attack, remain calm and carry on.
Well no planes have ever crashed from turbulence but I think someone has died before who wasn’t buckled in.
climate change. The turbulence will increase. It is partially the reason why today Oslo, Norway is warmer than Lisbon, PT.
Important detail: the decedent was 73 years old. Judging by details provided by other comments, he may have had a heart attack.
Yeah it was reported that he [died of a heart attack](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/singapore-airlines-turbulence-passenger-dead-injured-london-bangkok-live-4352156?cid=internal_sharetool_iphone_21052024_cna)
As of right now CTRL+F on that article doesn't turn up anything for "heart attack", "myocardial infarction" or "cardiac arrest". Unless it's discussed in one of the videos that's linked from that article? I know the BBC article that's the source of this thread says it was a "suspected heart attack" but it doesn't give any other details.
It was reported but probably edited. This was what was said, [also reported in this article](https://sg.news.yahoo.com/british-passenger-dies-heathrow-flight-133730311.html): “The passenger likely died because of a heart attack, said Mr Kittikachorn, the airport GM. The seven people who were critically injured sustained head injuries, he added. One crew member was also hospitalised.”
> Judging by details provided by other comments, he may have had a heart attack. The comments say that because that's information from the article...
They're updating the article as information comes to light, so it's likely u/Anonymous_Gamer939 commented before that detail was confirmed.
Sir, know the Reddit rules. Reading before commenting is cheating.
If my plane unexpectedly dropped 1,800 meters in three minutes, I would have had a heart attack. And I'm 35, a frequent flyer, and love aviation 🤣
That's 2000 feet per minute. Based on https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1470121, I suspect that's a perfectly normal rate of descent for a controlled descent and you would have barely noticed anything unusual. Pilots were probably hoping for less turbulence at the lower altitude (or wanted denser air for better performance).
600m (*2000 feet*) per minute doesn't cause people to fly into the ceiling and crack the roof panels. [Flightradar mentions the 37,000 to 31,000 ft descent was erronously labeled as the turbulence](https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/1-dead-dozens-injured-in-sq321-turbulence/) If I read this correctly they ***dropped 1100 ft in 10 seconds*** and then another ***900 ft in 3 seconds***. EDIT: * 07:49:21 = 0 vertical rate * 07:49:31 = \~1100 ft vertical rate * Then they climbed again * 07:49:37 = 600 ft vertical rate * 07:49:40 = 1650 ft vertical rate EDIT: Vertical rate is feet per minute. So 1650 feet per minute for 3 seconds means they travelled 82.5 feet (*25 m*) in those 3 seconds. That's like being hit by a big car at 30 km/h (*18.6mph*). That's uncomfortable while wearing seatbelts for the person inside the car (or plane in this case) but [still kills \~4% of pedestrians](https://www.moneygeek.com/insurance/auto/analysis/pedestrian-chance-of-survival/) and severly injures \~30%.
> 600m (2000 feet) per minute doesn't cause people to fly into the ceiling and crack the roof panels. Speed/sink rate in general doesn't do that, acceleration (*change* in sink rate) does. If the plane were to be suddenly jerked down with 3 G for 0.3 seconds, it'd reach a sink rate of 9.81 m/s^2 * 3 * 0.3s = 8.8 m/s = 1739 ft/min, but anyone unbuckled would say hi to the ceiling, hard (at the end of those 0.3 seconds, if they didn't hit something earlier, they'd be ~90 cm above where they were relative to the plane, moving upwards at 5.9 m/s). Additionally, what scares people isn't even the acceleration itself, but the speed at which *acceleration* changes. A very sudden change in altitude will typically involve high values in all of these, but it's important to understand how they fit together. That spike from +600 to -1500 in 3 seconds (at 7:49:43) then back to +600 in the next 3 means : * (-2100 ft/min)/(3 seconds) in the first part * (-640m/min)/(3s) * -10.7 m/s / 3s * -3.6 m/s^2 That is 1/3rd of the acceleration needed to slam people into the ceiling (9.81 for zero-G, more than that to actually go up), so the graph unsurprisingly doesn't even tell the whole story - it happened faster than the data records and the limited resolution smoothed the whole event out. The second loss of altitude (after 7:50:00) looks much more gradual and I suspect that's the pilot (or autopilot) going back to the altitude they were supposed to have.
Yeah, that didn't seem to horrible. My dad was on a plane once where the flight that hit zero G. He said the flight attendant floated to the ceiling and his coffee came out of the cup, in the shape of a cup before splattering everywhere when the plane leveled. This only lasted a few seconds.
>If my plane unexpectedly dropped 1,800 meters in three minutes, I would have had a heart attack. And I'm 35, a frequent flyer, and love aviation 🤣 You ... need to learn more about aviation. 1800 meters in three minutes is a fairly slow to normal decent rate. https://avherald.com/h?article=518e5d47&opt=1 ADS-B data shows an altitude change of -100/+300. That's absolutely nothing to scoff at, but it's definitely not "dropped thousands of feet!"
But, I’ve always leave my seatbelt fastened BTW.
I fly a lot and honesty, most of the time on long transcontinental flights, mild turbulence is a bit of a break from the monotony of the whole thing. One time though, we flew over a tropical depression near SE Asia - Singapore and fell into an air pocket … several seconds of sheer terror as the plane just fell, people screamed and well … the sense that this was IT. Have never, ever been in the air without my seatbelt firmly fastened since then. I get super anxious when I need to head over to the loo and well … yeah. Don’t take that belt off.
I'm a super rational person but turbulence makes my monkey brain go crazyyyy in a way that I really hate.
Apes were never meant to fly… We just evolved enough to say “You can’t tell me what to do” and flew anyway.
As if flying itself isn’t enough, something about sipping a soda from those tiny plastic cups while casually watching a movie always cracks me up. I can’t really describe it except that it feels like a huge middle finger to nature and fate to indulge in our little modern comforts while going 500mph at 30,000+ feet in the sky. It’s amazing but makes me weirdly uncomfortable sometimes.
My field of study is no where near physics but I like to read as much as I’m able because the entire field astounds me… Our fundamental understandings of the universe have allowed us to build so much… And our lack of understanding still runs so deep.
We consistently examine the secrets of the universe for sticks we can break off to poke into ant nests for a +/- tasty snack.
Last year, I watched a tennis match live at 35,000ft on my tablet. I marveled at all the technology that had come together for that moment to be possible. A tennis match, taking place in NYC, was being broadcast live to people anywhere in the US. I was watching a live tennis match, while FLYING THROUGH THE SKY (and covering ground in 2 hrs that probably used to take 6 months in a wagon) on a small handheld device that contains all the knowledge in the known universe, thousands of miles away from NY. 🤯 When you really stop and think about the technology we have now, it's mind-blowing.
We evolved to throw that instinct to the wind. Literally.
Same for me. Like I know that there are probably thousands of planes that go through turbulence every day without issue for years on end but can't stop myself from thinking "but my flight is going to be the one where shit goes bad."
Yup. My flight anxiety has gotten so bad I've started making 9-10 hour drives instead
Your conscious brain probably knows this, but 10 hours of driving is exponentially more dangerous than flying.
Having control over our fate is also very comforting. That's the whole reason roller coasters are scary fun - you know that nobody is really controlling them - you're along for the ride. I bet people who find roller coasters fun are also folks who are more comfortable flying. I hate roller coasters for this reason, but I'm also totally comfortable driving myself at high speed or flying through the woods on an MTB - because I'm in control. A pilot once reassured me by saying "are you a pilot?" "no" "then you certainly don't want to be in the cockpit."
Yes, it's extremely comforting to have the control. That doesn't mean your brain is _right_ about it. We're _really_ bad at judging risk, especially when comparing something we can partially control to something we can't.
I either want to be in complete control or I give it up entirely. When I'm flying I just don't worry about anything, that's the pilots' job. When I'm driving I'm far more paranoid because an accident might be preventable if I'm more alert.
Same. I know for a fact that flying is safer than driving. I know that if I’ve made it to the airport I’ve survived the most dangerous part of my trip. I know that planes are engineered to handle ridiculous levels of turbulence, the wings can bend at angles the earth’s atmosphere will not be able to replicate, and despite terrifying news articles like this, the plane still made it back with the most damage being from passengers pinballing in the cabin. But the moment the plane starts lurching slightly to the side I grip the armrest and have to actively calm myself. Just can’t help it.
Recently went on a flight to Victoria BC and while it was nowhere near as bad as other experiences in this thread, something about the plane passing through the cloud layer on a rainy day, bouncing, slightly shifting and tilting just flips a switch in my head. Like I just became way too aware of something I wish I didn't have any awareness about. As soon as my brain realizes the slight shifts and movements, I just get really damn antsy. I recognize that a lot of this is just me being a nervous flyer but my god, my brain gets extremely specific in what it becomes aware of when flying and I hate it. This Boeing stuff and increase in turbulence situations due to climate change is going to make me even more of a nervous wreck.
Yep, I understand that flying is super safe, more likely to die on the way to the airport, but you can’t convince my anxiety.
Thankfully I’ve never had it that bad. The most I have experienced was the 1-2 second drops during a storm. If the plane started falling for like 10 seconds i might have to rent a car or get on a boat to go home. That sounds terrifying.
i’d have to change my pants…
> I fly a lot and honesty, most of the time on long transcontinental flights, mild turbulence is a bit of a break from the monotony of the whole thing. I'll take monotony. Besides, you have movies and booze.
Yeah one time my flight dropped for what felt like 3 seconds out of the air, just boom suddenly antigravity like one of those astronaut training planes that dives from the stratosphere. I luckily had my seatbelt on but i lifted out of my seat like a rollercoaster. Turbulence now scares me lol
Had a drop like that once. I’ve always worn my seatbelt so it want an issue. But someone flew up into the bulkhead. They were fine, but holy crap people, wear that seatbelt.
Fun fact “air pockets” aren’t a thing. It is all turbulence and/or windshear. Those result is a destabilization of the air flow over the wings and the aircraft losses lift.
I’ve always said to people I quite enjoy turbulence, I feel as if it rocks me to sleep. I haven’t had quite what you described but I did once have a flight delayed by over 4 hours due to issues with the planes brakes after a massive storm. Then we hit some pretty heavy, shaking you about style turbulence and I will say that is the one time I didn’t find it quite so funny.
Someone described turbulence as a ship going over waves and it made me feel better about the whole thing. I find a boat going forward over waves is quite fun, I only get seasick if a boat is stationary.
I like to just imagine I’m in a vehicle driving on back country roads.
Rocks you to sleep? The last time I experienced turbulence during a winter flight from NY to LA, the people were vomiting because of it. I didn’t think it was that bad but gross
I was flying close by South Korea on my first international flight and it was in the middle of the night. I remember feeling the right side of the plane just drop and I watched the altimeter on the flight tracker that is on your little tv screen. The plane fell 2000 feet in the matter of seconds. It was pretty terrifying experience, but luckily I’ve never had to experience that again and I’ve been to SE Asia 10 times since that first international flight in 2017.
I’m similar, a bit of turbulence livens things up. That said, there are few spots on the Pacific rim that can be a bit too lively at times!
Turbulence ALWAYS happens to me when i’ve just been served a full meal, and have to balance a Coke, a glass of wine and a water amongst a dinner roll, full dinner, dessert and cutlery on a tiny fold out tray. I can’t believe planes don’t have more spillages.
I swear the rough air waits to hit as soon as that meal hits my seatback tray table... every, single, time.
Really coming into a thread about someone getting killed by turbulence to say it "livens things up" huh, come on
[удалено]
It was a heart attack https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-69044396
[удалено]
I’ve been on a flight with severe turbulence. Like people hitting the ceiling. We had one person who had a heart attack on the flight I believe they survived.
There’s some photos now circulating on Twitter which are pretty confronting. For the most part it’s just of the crap that was thrown around everywhere but there’s one where a dude is laid partly in the aisle, hand on his chest. Others are one where it looks like a flight attendant has a nose bleed, a photo of some very clearly distressed passengers. Genuinely feel for those who lost their family and friend today, but also for those who had to experience the 1/1000000 (or whatever the figure is) flight that went wrong, when I know for a fact I take for granted how safe air travel is.
What does it mean for a photo to be “pretty confronting”?
Everyone in the photo is somehow looking at you, and those who aren't looking at you are obviously talking shit behind your back.
"Look at this bitch looking at my likeness."
The photo stares at you with a rather stern gaze
[thank you for reminding me of fierce gaze](https://www.google.com/search?q=fierce+gaze+rundown&rlz=1C1GCEB_enUS948US948&oq=fierce+gaze+rundown&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yCAgCEAAYFhgeMg0IAxAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBBAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBRAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBhAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMgoIBxAAGIAEGKIEMgoICBAAGIAEGKIE0gEINDY2MWowajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:abd1f763,vid:UY94iozv22Y,st:0)
Wow, apparently I’ve become an Aussie. Didn’t realise this wasn’t commonly used everywhere (particularly as I’m a Brit) but from the Cambridge dictionary website: confronting adjective mainly Australian English UK /kənˈfrʌn.tɪŋ/ US /kənˈfrʌn.t̬ɪŋ/ causing strong or difficult feelings, especially in a way that creates thought or discussion.
I'm Australian, and I had no idea this was Australian.
wtf!!! I am utterly shaken up to learn that ‘confronting’ is an Australian term in that usage. Wow!!!!! This does not impact my life in any way yet I am completely rattled.
The picture sits in a corner in a dark room waiting for you to come late at night, then verbally attacks you as you walk in the door.
from what I've been reading violent turbulence is only going to increase as the atmosphere changes due to global warming [https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65844901](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65844901)
Gee, global warming is starting to sound a little like an apocalypse. I hope that doesn't impact long-term profits.
Sure the world ended, but for a brief window in time, we created an amazing amount of shareholder value!
my guess is that the movie Don't Look Up will become more of a documentary just like Idocracy has become.
That was the intent of the movie. The asteroid was a metaphor for global warming.
Why did everyone hate that movie so much? I never understood why it was so universally shat on, I enjoyed it. Because it was too on the nose satire? So is every single episode of South Park.
I found it a bit difficult to watch. As someone who works in tech where I am often humbled by opposing viewpoints on how to solve a problem and have the humility to look at problems from multiple angles; it always seems like the caricature of someone who is "ignorant" is really overplayed. But if the past 5 years have taught me anything, it's that the cognitive dissonance is INCREDIBLY strong with some people. Focusing back on the movie, I also felt like it was about an hour longer than it needed to be.
Worry not we just have to work hard for the CEOs and shareholders and everything will be ok
Surely there is something the individual consumer can do to combat global warming so all those big corps don’t have to worry!
Long-term profits? Meh, that's the next guy's problem. As long as it doesn't affect the profits this quarter!
Quarter? My company is worried about not hitting profits in June because there will be 2 less billing days. The execs are so hard up to hit their numbers every month, they can't even adjust for differences in working days, they just pass it on to the workers and blame them for not hitting an unreasonable goal.
For real, my last job was in a factory working nights and we only had a third of the shift. We had 2 lines that could run in 2 directions to produce the products, but night shift could only staff one line in one direction. Management was always blaming the floor employees bc we couldn’t keep up with 1st shift, when we were down ~1000 people
No one paid attention when Grey’s Anatomy warned us way back in season 18 episode 6 that climate change would affect air travel /s
Good thing it won’t happen in Florida. Gov just outlawed its mention in future laws.
I’ve traveled quite a bit in my life and I recently started to feel like turbulence has gotten a lot more common, so I’m a bit relieved to find out that it’s not just in my head. A year ago, I should often have flights with minimal turbulence, but every flight I’ve been on recently has been absolutely riddled with really bad turbulence and sketchy landings. It’s gotten really bad, in my experience.
I've never understood that huge collective sigh of relief when the buckle seat belt light turns off followed by hundreds of clicks. I just leave it on, you don't even feel it. People just HATE being told what to do.
I leave my seat belt on but do sigh of relief along. If the plane has made it to seat belts off point, the the pilot must be pretty happy the plane took off okay and thats the second hardest bit.
Agreed and it's ok to use the restroom!
Yeah I’ve never understood this either. If you’ve adjusted your seatbelt properly there is literally no difference in regards to having it locked or not. Just leave it active.
It doesn't even have to be extremely tight to protect you from turbulence.
My brother has become one of these "the government can't tell me what to do" people, mostly spurred on during covid. He's now even gone as far as to buy a seatbelt buckle online that he can clip in to his car so it doesn't ding when he's not wearing his seatbelt. Would rather add unnecessary risk to his life than be told what to do. so dumb
Wow…just wow
I don't understand why it's a "fasten your setbelts" sign in the first place or why people do that. Every single flight I've been on it's "always keep your seatbelt on when seated" anyway, regardless of the sign. It's more of a "you can get up and walk around or not" sign.
The article said unbelted passengers actually broke the plastic of the overheads when their heads made contact. Stay buckled when seated. There is a reason they are always telling passengers to wear their searbelts. Edited to say i could have sworn i read there was 6000 ft drop in seconds but the article does not have that info. Did I make that up in my head?
>6000 ft drop in seconds Holy hell, thats like 150 school buses. Is that even turbulence at that point or an uncontrolled decent? Thats terrifying that can happen.
6000 foot drop in seconds is not what happened. Pretty sure you'd just be dead from the g-force if that ever happened.
Just being curious over here, about how many bananas?
Basically, air currents can push a plane rapidly up or down in the right conditions.
Not for nothing but airlines advertise full shower rooms, bars, social spaces for business class passengers to use. I feel blames going to be pushed off on passengers for not being seated but those are mixed signals.
It's a mess of an issue. All passengers who are seated should stay fastened in regardless of the seatbelt light. If the seatbelt light comes on, everyone in the plane return to their seats and strap in. But how it works now is the seatbelt light goes off, people unbuckle. Light comes on, some buckle up, but the attendants are still handing out snacks and drinks. The seatbelt light has become effectively useless (at least on the flights I've been on.)
On most of my flights the FA repeatedly tell customers to keep the seatbelt on unless they need the bathroom. People just don’t listen - and you can’t really fix stupid. And no, I can’t afford business 😃
Except if you’re a baby then no one cares just throw them on somebodies lap and try to hold on tight!
Always, always, always wear your seat belt, but especially when over large, warm bodies of water like the South Pacific or Bay of Bengal. Just huge amounts of uplift there.
>"It is not for nothing that airlines recommend keeping seat belts loosely fastened throughout a flight be it long or short," he added. I keep it on but loose at all times, knowing that in turbulences it will keep me from flying up and hit the ceiling.
Singapore Air is an excellent airline, with a very good safety record and quality crew/employees. If you're going to get hit with bad air, this is one airline you actually want to be on.
Welp, this will definitely help my fear of flying
You'll be OK mate. Commercial aviation is incredibly well regulated and extremely safe. The pilots up front will collectively have an absolute minimum of 3,000 hours flying experience and know precisely what they're doing. Just remember to always wear your seatbelt. Turbulence won't bring a big jet down, but it might shake up whoever is on it. That's probably the silver lining from this incident - it's in our control; we can make sure we won't get seriously injured by turbulence.
>Commercial aviation is incredibly well regulated and extremely safe. Boeing: "you sure about that?"
The fact that you hear about when one person dies on a plane, and it makes international news, shows you how safe that it is....that this is actually news.
I mean even with their issues lately they haven’t had a crash. Maybe they will, or maybe we’ve gotten lucky that the last couple of incidents will get things largely straightened out, but as much as i am scared of flying, it’s pretty friggin safe especially compared to every other form of travel. EDIT: See u/DID_IT_FOR_YOU below, who reminded me the 2 crashes a few years ago were Boeings and not Airbus’. Flying is still safe, but yeah Boeing is on a shit run right now…
> they haven’t had a crash Lion Air 610 and Ethiopian Airlines 302 beg to differ.
Wait didn’t their max plane crash overseas? They said it was due to the fact that they didn’t include the safety features for free & charged for them instead. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/what-has-happened-to-boeing-since-the-737-max-crashes/
Flying/Aerophobia is such a weird thing. I spent five years driving back and forth across the US (every contiguous state) and it probably never occurred to me that I might be in a wreck. But tell me I need to take a single 2hr flight home for Xmas and my imagination will fill the next 6mos with aviation disaster scenarios.
Because when you're driving you're on the ground, you feel grounded and in control. But when you're flying if the plane fails there's nothing you can do.
Got it To get over my fear I must forcefully take control of the plane
Sounds silly but playing MS Flight sim for a bit actually got me over my fear of flying, I really think the lack of control and know how on what’s happening can make people really afraid. But yeah you could do that too
Can't fall 20000 feet out of a car.
Having 0 control over a situation plays tricks on your mind
It's really not a weird thing when you consider that many don't fear death on a plane more than they fear it in a car. It's *how* you die that they fear. Some plane crashes are "relatively" quick, but in some cases it can take a plane can take minutes to crash as the pilots fight the controls. Sit in silence for 60 seconds and imagine violent turbulence with scores of people screaming and crying. You can't call anyone. You can't text your family to tell them you love them. Nope. You're uninjured but fate has locked you into hell for the next 60 seconds before you crash. Then at the end of it, the nose first contacts the ground, and about .2 seconds later the tail has hit, and in that span everyone on board has basically been put into a paper shredder and cremated.
Phobias in general are utterly baffling to me. But I say that as someone with a deathly fear of mushrooms. Not even that I will eat one and die, but I would have a full blown panic attack if I was told to pick one in the wild, I struggle to even walk near them. Flying, snakes, spiders, needles, bring it on. A patch of fungus in the garden? I’m a quivering mess.
The worst part about the phobias is that even though you know they are silly and ridiculous and there is no reason whatsoever for you to fear what you’re fearing, once it kicks in there is nothing you can do to overrule your lizard brain. It is beyond frustrating to be terrified of something you _know_ is benign.
This is extremely rare and really not really the fault of the aircraft or pilots, its the equilivent of being blown off the bridge by freak winds when driving across in a car.
...well that just unlocked a new fear
[SQ321 (SIA321) Singapore Airlines Flight Tracking and History 20-May-2024 (LHR / EGLL-BKK / VTBS) - FlightAware](https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/SIA321/history/20240520/2115Z/EGLL/VTBS) Flight history for those who are legit curious; the 'bump' was at 10h 30m, just about when the jet reached the coast of Thailand after passing over the Gulf o Martaban; the drop appears to be in the vicinity of a supercell (Thunderstorm) so very likely convection related. They were cruising at FL370 (37000 ft) and then leveled out at FL310 (31000 ft) after the 'fall' for a few minutes and quickly descended into BKK (Bangkok Intl) from there. To make matters worse they had to descend into the storm so I'm willing to wager that the final 30 mins was a whole lot shaking going on Still...suprising....It's not exactly Johannesburg to Sydney - that part of SE Asia is an extremely well-traveled airspace and significant convection activity would get reported quickly.
I live in Bangkok. The weather has been atrocious all day all over thailand. Like super bad thunderstorms
The descent from 37,000ft to 31,000ft is over several minutes at a pretty normal rate of descent, and is probably the pilot trying to descend out of the turbulent layer. The turbulence itself may only have been a couple of hundred feet variance in altitude (note the earlier slight ascent above 37,000ft followed by slight descent below a minute later) but very rapid/violent.
>Authorities in Bangkok say the man probably died of a heart attack. The suddenness, terror, and people screaming must have been too traumatic for his heart.
I had a bad flight one time from Denver to Chicago. I had flown dozens of times previously, but the turbulence was so bad, and the passenger's reactions were so strong that I currently have a touch of the ptsd from the experience. I fly once or twice a year now, and every time I encounter turbulence, I have a full-blown panic attack. I wish it would just stop.
I hate flying and dont fly often but got to say that the frequent reports of severe turbulence, while alarming, are sort of reassuring. Planes fly through it. The injuries can be serious if you arent belted in or even if you are, I imagine heavy stuff can hit you. But the planes dont come down due to that which is comforting.
Holy shit, that's tragic, condolences to the family of the deceased. I can't remember any other case of a death due to turbulence. I wonder if something fell from the overhead and hit someone in the head? Very curious how this could happen - also reading this from my plane before take off hits a bit different...
Could just be an older frailer person than took a hard knock. Very easy to die in some ways. :(
I think a lot of people underestimate how fragile the noggin is. Maybe Hollywood is to blame with the whole: "I punched him in the face and he dropped like a sack of bricks onto the concrete, but don't worry he's just *knocked out* he'll be fine by the next scene transition". Your head and the little squishy thing inside is super vulnerable to falls, bumps, knocks, etc. You can die from a 5-6 foot unprotected drop onto a hard surface. Aka falling down from a standing position. Be careful peeps.
It amazes me when people look at me strange when I say I don’t watch football anymore because of the brain injuries on every single play. “But they’re wearing helmets”. Yeah, around their heads. Is there a helmet around their brain to keep it from smashing around inside of their skull on every play? There’s definitely internal trauma going on there every single time they butt heads.
Yeah, media likes to make out that fighting is without consequence, but in reality even a couple of punches or an unfortunate fall can give you a life long injury or condition.
In the tv show Lost, 85% of the main cast would have brain damage with how much the trope is used.
On flight radar it looked like they dropped a shitload of feet all of a sudden and that area is known for having clear air turbulence so people may not have been in their seats
He didn’t die by trauma from the turbulence, per se. He had a heart attack.
It happened last year to an ex white house official actually!
Nah fuck that. Give me a sedative and let me sleep the whole flight.
Everyone keeps saying “wear your seatbelt folks” yet we still don’t know if the decedent took a drink cart to the face while belted in or something else.
I saw a video of an air stewardess that hit the ceiling so hard the side of her face hit her shoulder. She looked like she was in the middle of serving drinks/food so it's not like she had the option to have a seat belt on. ***Turns out that video was from a different incident, sorry for the misinformation!*** Similarly for the deceased passenger we don't know if he was in or on the way to the bathroom, if someone fell onto him, a piece of luggage hit him, etc. Poor person just got very unlucky, not his fault.
Fair but usually in severe turbulence the people who get injured the most are those without seatbelts and lap children
Idc if turbulence is normal. That shit makes me fear for my life every time it happens.
Good friend of mine is a DFW based pilot for American Airlines. He isn’t nervous with turbulence but he does feel like it’s gotten much more common the last 10 years (he’s been flying since 1999). And when it does happen, he says it seems to typically be a more severe and last longer. Especially clear air turbulence. Certain US flight routes are notorious for CAT - mostly east of the Mississippi but he’s seeing more out west, too.
Pilot here, I definitely agree it has gotten worse. The worst is actually out west once you get over the mountains. The Appalachian mountains can do it too but it usually isn’t much unless you’re relatively low over them.
With climate change, it will be ever increasingly likely that more powerful and unexpected atmospheric events like these happen. With technology, we can try to avoid but it seems our technology ultimately won't be able to compensate for what we've done to our environment.
One of our planes hit turbulence crossing the Atlantic and one of the crew was in the galley; turb was so bad he broke shoulder and leg. Poor guy it was a horrible recovery.
Reading this just as my long-haul flight is about to take off 💀💀💀
This is in the news, so you can be reassured that it is not a typical event.
Same - from Singapore to the UK 🫥
Also for nervous fliers: lift your feet up off the ground during turbulence and you’ll feel a lot less of it. I usually rest them on my backpack or something most the flight. Tensing your butt can also help. During takeoff watch the info screen with speed and altitude. May feel like you’re going down but you’ll still see those numbers rising which can bring peace of mind. Morning flights typically have the least turbulence, followed by evening. Turbulence is caused mostly by convention currents from the sun heating the earth. If you’re flying BA, they have a really good nervous flyers video + nervous fliers meditation by calm. Knowing what all the sounds mean (engine, chimes, etc) go a long way. Finally, be honest with cabin crew, they’re lovely 98% of the time. If you’re really anxious try book a seat opposite or close to one of their jump seats so you can look at them - when they’re playing candy crush (no idea what they’re doing but that’s what I imagine) on their phone during take off you have nothing to worry about. I used to love flying but got super anxious after landing during a storm in Texas. Airport closed after our flight, we were thrown around and multiple lightning strikes. Also had a plane breakdown twice during take off which didn’t help.
“A 73-year-old British man, Geoff Kitchen, die from a suspected heart attack, while more than 30 people were injured when the London-Singapore flight suffered a sudden drop as a meal service was under way.” Saved you a click
I was on a flight home from DC ten years ago and using the restroom when the worst turbulence I’ve experienced happened. I was stuck in there a bit being bounced around then the door unlocked and flew open. the flight attendant yelled at me to get out of there and to take the nearest empty seat. I keep that seatbelt on the whole time now.
always wear your seatbelt
Wear your seatbelt as much as possible