Just after boarding a 737 at the STL airport recently, the pilot announced that they were delaying leaving the gate because of a “code red.” He went on to explain that meant lightning was detected within 3 miles of the airport and all ground crew were to go indoors. I started wondering what would happen if a tornado was detected nearby. Would they evacuate us from the plane since we were still at the gate? What if the plane had already departed from the gate and was in line for take-off? Are tornados powerful enough to move/spin/flip a 737?
There was a truly wicked storm in Chicago earlier this month, with tornado warnings for much of the city. Here’s what happened at O’Hare:
They don’t say if any planes had already pushed back, but my guess would be that ground control wouldn’t let the planes leave the gate if there was weather severe enough to cause a stoppage of flights.
In Texas at DFW, the bathrooms are designated with signs indicating “Severe Weather Area”. I thought this was rather rude until I was in Denver, where they say “Tornado Shelter”, which is much more clear. So you should probably head to the bathrooms.
That was my near-death experience. That storm built up pretty fast. The sirens sounded in my area before anything was even overhead (all we heard was just the usual growling of lightning on the horizon), which I thought was pretty unusual until we realized just what had come over :eek:
Regarding O’hare: considering the suddenness of that storm, was there any aircraft that was already away from the gates on taxiways? Did they have time to return and disembark their pax? Or are airports able to predict this far enough in advance that by the time something like this comes over all personnel and PAX are already in their safe zones?