One could claim that American Flight 587 (Nov 2001) was caused by a wake turbulence encounter, but the NTSB found that the probable cause was unnecessary and excessive rudder pedal inputs by the first officer.
Discounting microbursts, the closest thing I can find to an air carrier accident actually caused by turbulence is Wien Consolidated Flight 55, which crashed in Alaska in December 1968. The airplane encountered severe to extreme turbulence, causing structural failure and separation of the right wing. However, the NTSB investigation found fatigue cracks in the wing structure that had been allowed to form and propagate over time due to poor maintenance practices at the airline. Had the airplane been maintained properly, chances are good that it would have survived the encounter.
I am rarely disturbed by the actual turbulence to the plane itself, I stay strapped in and minimize loose stuff that can be turned into a missile. What bothers me is vomit - I am a sympathetic pucker - seeing, smelling or hearing people hurking can trigger it in me and the puke bags are tiny [I tend to carry a couple 1 gallon ziplok bags just in case. Much easier to vomit in, and they seal so nicely when filled.]
Years ago on a flight in one of those silly commuter planes from Chicago to Des Moines we hit strong headwinds and strong turbulence on the approach. We came in fast and low and bouncing up and down and right and left, yawing and crabbing. Hit the landing strip hard and bounced a coupe time with accompanying banging and rattling. As we slowed the attendant got on the phone and said :“Well, wasn’t that fun.” Broke the tension.
I was on a flight from Quito to Lima once where the flight attendants were strapped into their jump seats and almost crying and several people on the plane were praying out loud.
I was terrified for about 20 seconds, then strangely, very calm and peaceful.
One thing that might ease one’s mind a bit is to look at the definition of different levels of turbulence to realize what a big difference there is between “Hey, this plane is shaking a lot and the flight attendant just wobbled her way back to the seat” and turbulence that may actually cause damage to the plane during cruise. Read this.
I’m willing to bet that few airline passengers have ever experienced anything more than moderate turbulence. Looking here, there’s a statistic that there’s 65,000 reports of moderate or greater turbulence each year, of which 5,500 are severe. And of that number, the number of injuries sustained each year is probably in the single digit to dozens range.
What about turbulence caused by a real problem, like a stall? Is that recognizable by a passenger? Here’s a thread from a couple years ago about Air France 447 that crashed due to a deep stall, and some of the Doper pilots said it would have been a terrifying ride down before the crash. Would a passenger be able to tell the difference between that and actual air turbulence?
And no, I couldn’t do anything practical about it if I knew we were going to crash, but I still might appreciate the opportunity to give my wife a last kiss.
I always wondered about Air France 447. If the cockpit door wasn’t secured, and a passenger stormed into the cockpit and yelled “Guys, guys, don’t you hear that loud stall warning going off!?” could that have made a difference? Probably not. But it seems like one of the few crashes where having a layperson at the controls just holding the aircraft level might have been an improvement over the actual flight crew.
I flew from Puerto Rico to Florida on a Wednesday years ago. I think I was the only non-Puerto Rican on the flight. Smoothest flight ever, but most of the passengers said/mouthed prayers and fondled rosaries the entire (short) flight. When the plane landed, everyone burst into applause.
Yes. I haven’t flown into Puerto Rico for a while so I don’t know if it has changed, but in the 6-7 times I did it, I think the passengers applauded at landing every time.
You “could” be concerned every time you experience turbulance but as a passenger there’s nothing you can do about it. After I’ve boarded, settled in, and buckled up, I take my shoes off and crack open the book I brought along. No matter how hard I flap my arms, I’ll never be able to keep an airplane aloft. C’est la vie.
That’s right, the ice itself wasn’t a factor at all, it was the fact that the anti ice systems were on which artificially increases the speed at which the stall warning activates coupled with the captain’s grossly inappropriate response to the stall warning that caused the crash.
I’m well aware of that, but it doesn’t really answer my factual question in GQ. Perhaps I should have phrased it better, but I’m curious when does turbulence represent a danger to the aircraft.
Ah, so the stall warnings sounded early, assuming there was ice on the wings, but there wasn’t an actual stall quite at that time? And then the pilot, for some reason, panicked and pulled back on the stick, making the plane actually stall, and it all went to hell from there. Is that the jist?
Well, maybe. But that’s why there are rigorous and well-defined procedures for maintaining them. Any number of things could be serious concerns if no-one bothered to look after the planes and check for possible problems.
There was also Delta Flight 191 that crashed short of the runway in Dallas/Fort Worth in 1985 due to a microburst/wind shear. That is just an extreme form of turbulence that is too close to the ground to allow for adequate recovery. The description makes it sound like a wild ride all the way to the end. Even that didn’t cause in-flight cause structural failure of the aircraft itself however. The forces were simply too great for the pilots to compensate for that low. All major airports in the U.S. now have wind shear detection equipment as a direct result of that crash.
I was on a flight from New York to New Orleans once that couldn’t land there because of severe thunderstorms. We had to divert to Houston only to find out half way there that they had just closed the airport due to another severe thunderstorm system. We turned back to New Orleans but didn’t have the fuel to make it so we had to land in Houston anyway. That was by far the most violent flight that I have ever been on out of many hundreds. People were screaming, praying, crying, holding hands and vomiting. Everything had to be secured as best as possible for about 45 minutes but we made it. The plane itself seemed to hold together fine.
I was on a flight from Chicago to Omaha, Nebraska last month. There was no apparent problem on approach except it was fairly windy but the pilot wasn’t able to flare at all during the landing and we just smacked straight onto the runaway hard enough that it hurt my tailbone and lots of people screamed. I don’t know if that was caused by some type of wind shear or if it was just a botched landing but it gives me confidence that you can land an airliner that hard and have it back up in the air 45 minutes later with no damage.
, “*Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats
until Capt. Crash and the Crew have brought the aircraft to a
screeching halt against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has
cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we’ll open the door
and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal.”
