Watchlords

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/12/18/us/h ... index.html

With 20 hauled off to emergency care.

The pilots and aviation experts on the board (of which I’m neither) might verify my vague memory that “severe turbulence” is actually an official designation and not generally encountered by the flying public which tends to describe “moderate” erroneously as severe. This I suspect was the real thing.

Kind of reminds me of a Crichton novel wherein it was explained that airframes are designed to withstand “extreme” turbulence though the humans on board are not so designed.

Anyhow the report on this should be interesting once completed.

Whew! At first, I thought somebody had broke wind at an Invicta trade show.

That wouldn’t be news.

This is a good reason to keep your seatbelt on while in your airplane seat.

That had to be just awful!

A big damn aircraft squeaking and rattling and slamming idiots and debris all over and instead of getting up to take a leak you get nailed in the face with 5 bottle of water and half a drink cart!

And the noises! You know people wouldn’t just STFU and be privately terrified…. Nah, there’s be all SORTS of auditory chaos, too.

Yikes!

“Other than that, though, how did you like Hawaii?”

Wow!!

To my recollection, flight turbulence does indeed have levels which needs to be reported to ATC. Thinking it was chop & turbulence and further broken down by severity.
Unlike heading into a lightning cloud (for instance), turbulence is invisible.

Nuvolari wrote: ↑

December 18th 2022, 8:29pm

And the noises! You know people wouldn’t just STFU and be privately terrified…. Nah, there’s be all SORTS of auditory chaos, too.

And on the ninth day, the good lord invented noise cancelling headphones.

One of the pics online purports to show a nice hole in the overhead caused by a bottle of water. I suppose that suggests negative g loading that would get my full attention.

At least one passenger was quiet : the one that was knocked smooth out.

Last count was eleven serious injuries out of the twenty that were taken to hospital. None critical.

NTSB is on it. I’d be curious if it got above 1 negative g and whether it shows up on the flight recorder. The CVR might offer some comic relief.

Took a dip on what they told us was a 'moderate' wind sheer while flying into DIA during a thunderstorm. Moderate? I'm pretty sure I saw my colon coming out of my throat. Having orally expelled one's colon is certainly no way to arrive at the medical examiner's office, by golly. Had nightmares for months and have hated flying's guts ever since.

Probably was moderate based on the official scale but sure ‘nuff feels like “moderate” doesn’t cover it.

The Hawaii flight was officially severe but reported as “extreme” in the news. Oddly enough “extreme” is an official designation but if it was actually extreme the A330 would be getting a full structural analysis and the news would be at a loss for an appropriate adjective.

If your airplane landed structurally intact, the turbulence was moderate or lighter. You can thank the aircrew for keeping the wings attached. Keep in mind the people reporting the level of turbulence to you think an airplane stalls when the engine quits.

Mark1 wrote: ↑

December 21st 2022, 8:27pm

…people… think an airplane stalls when the engine quits.

Ha! Yeah - and if THAT happens, you could be up there, like, forever!