Posted on 06/01/2010 10:28:36 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement
The turbulence engulfing Delta Airlines Flight 2425 en route to West Palm Beach lasted just two seconds.
While the early word from airline officials was that no passengers were hurt and three flight attendants suffered minor injuries on the March 11 flight, it turns out one of the attendants broke her back and has not been able to return to work, according to federal documents and her union.
The lead flight attendant was momentarily "suspended midair," grazing the ceiling. A third attendant "was thrown straight up in the air," landed on his tailbone and was held to the floor by passengers until the turbulence abated.
All three attendants had just risen from their seats as air conditions calmed over the Space Coast.
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
“... suspended midair, grazing the ceiling ...”
Hey, I’ve done that... In a school bus!
prayers for her quick recovery and hope the AIrline takes care of their own.
Turbulence has always bugged me because I have yet to get a good handle on where the threshold between “annoyance” and “danger to the aircraft” lies. Not being a pilot myself, I can only take the word of others, and would appreciate any input actual pilots or others with genuine knowledge of this area would care to contribute. I’m sure it’s higher than I think it is, but without knowing, I can’t help being unnerved.
OMG!! Prayers!!
Just flip on the Seat Belt sign lighting when anticipating rough air...
The expectations will have proven in vain... (see--smooth!)
Leave the Seat Belt light off during the clear blue-sky ride to the left coast??
(CAT--Clear Air Turbulence) will track you down and thrash your airplane all over the sky....
Go figure....
Everyone get well....
Please feel better!
I’ve had three terrifying events on planes. One was in the late 80s, the plane lost altitude and things went flying everywhere. Thank goodness I had the seatbelt on. Another was a very hard landing at the San Jose airport that had most of the passengers in tears. The third was an aborted landing at Charles de Gaulle a couple of years ago on a windy day. And that doesn’t include all the TSA nightmares!
Me too! Stand way in the back, jump at the “bump ahead” sign in the road.
Prayers for the flight attendants though. They didn’t intend to hit the ceiling.
I experienced severe air turbulence on a flight from Cleveland to Cincinnati. Beautiful day for flying, blue sky, smooth takeoff and then about 20min into the flight we were shook up and down hundreds of feet like the hand of God was playing with the plane. We had a crawl into Cincinnati very slowly the rest of the flight to avoid shaking the plane.
I also experienced a horrid landing in Detroit during a thunderstorm where I could actually see all the way down the runway from the left side of the plane, we landed sideways, and you could hear the computers screaming, “WIND SHEAR WIND SHEAR PULL UP PULL UP!”
Watch this:
Boeing 787 Wing Break Test
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA9Kato1CxA
The wing withstood 150% of the design limit load.
I was sitting down when I was launched into the roof of the bus...
Airplane turbulence isn’t as dangerous as it might seem
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wturbwht.htm
I’ve seen that one, and others like it. My concern isn’t necessarily with the strength of the wing box (though on some older aircraft, it does make me wonder how many load cycles it takes for aluminum to fatigue), my concern is with how turbulence affects the control surfaces, and at what point does turbulence pose a threat to maintaining control of the aircraft and to uninterrupted airflow through the turbine compressors. Most aircraft stay in one piece even during totally uncontrolled flight. Heck, I just watched video of a 757 with the new Rolls Royce engines do a near-vertical climb, which is not generally recommended for large passenger aircraft.
Your Detroit experience was very similar to the one we had in San Jose, we were just above the tree tops and not only were we rocking from side to side but the pilot could not keep the nose up for landing. My husband was holding our then 2 yr old on his lap and he promised me he would never let go but I knew about momentum and I just prayed. My husband kept saying that the pilot would abort the landing and then next thing we knew we hit the ground...hard. Then we bounced for what seemed like a life time, then bam, another hard hit, another bounce and then we were down. I did not fly for ten years after that experience.
It has taken a long time for me to accept the fear of turbulence as well and I am still not over it completely.
But a friend years ago reassured me that the Boeing jets are built very very strong and that turbulence was so much a danger as a pilot’s response to it.
That said, I love it when an airline pilot reduces speed in a turbulent zone because as I understand it is speed that is a big factor. I would rather be late and have a smooth flight than be on time and be trembling in fear when I arrive.
I can pretty reliably predict when turbulence will occur. It starts within about 3 seconds after delivery of hot coffee to my tray table.
WOW!
I guess thing I most need to know is: if the plane is really bucketing and bouncing around the sky, how much danger is the aircraft really in? I know small planes do that kind of thing even on relatively normal days, but they don’t fly at 500+ mph either. My one friend who is a pilot isn’t much help, since he was a warthog driver, and that thing will fly with major parts of the fuselage missing, so he has a distorted view of flight.
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