The recent incident where a person died on a Singapore Airlines flight that went through severe air turbulence has probably raised our anxieties about air travel once again. Who wouldn't be worried when the plane starts shaking violently?
In an earlier article by Esquire Philippines, a pilot said that air turbulence, technically called clear-air turbulence, is a normal occurrence in flight and is usually not deadly.
What You Need to Know About Air Turbulence
An Independent article explains three causes of air turbulence:
- Warm air rises through cooler air, called a thermal;
- A mountain or tall man-made structure disrupts natural air flow;
- Wind shear, where two pockets of air moving in different directions bump with each other.
All of these cause the "rough air" or chaotic behavior of wind that often disrupts an airplane's ride. The usual effect is the plane shaking, the degree of which varies with each case. But the most serious effect is causing the plane to lose lift or its "grip" on air, leading to drastic loss of altitude, which happened to the Singapore Airlines flight in question. The occurrence when a plane loses lift and falls a bit in the air is called a stall.
Most air industry experts say airplanes are built to withstand turbulence and safely bring people to their destinations. However, many people have already flown many times and that does increase the number who have undergone severe air turbulence and suffered mishaps.
One recent case that is closer to home is Philippine Airlines Flight PR113 flying from Los Angeles to Manila in August 2022. On that Boeing 777, the same model of plane as in the Singapore Airlines flight, 12 people were injured. Thankfully, no life was lost.
Esquire's previous article on PR113 said the plane's radar failed to detect the turbulence. Actually, we've since learned that radar is not always expected to detect turbulence since turbulence can only show up on radar if it contains water droplets.
Indonesian aviation analyst Alvin Lie, in an interview with Channel News Asia, said that clear-air turbulence is mostly undetectable and can turn up at the most unexpected moments. The pilots of the Singapore Airlines plane had no means to detect the turbulence they encountered and were taken by surprise.
Are there other cases where air turbulence led to deaths? Here are a couple:
1. BOAC Flight 911 is a Boeing 707 that broke up in the air because of severe air turbulence in 1966, killing 124. The flight had departed from Tokyo Haneda airport for Hong Kong and had been going around Mount Fuji when it was torn apart by the turbulence. Air crash investigators said the tail fin was the first to detach from the airplane, followed by a gradual disintegration of the airframe. They also found signs of fatigue on the tail fin's attaching points, though they concluded that this did not contribute significantly to the crash. Nevertheless, this finding and other lessons learned likely helped airplane companies strengthen airframes as well as identify areas of severe turbulence to avoid.
2. A 32-year-old Japanese woman died on United Airlines Flight 826, a Boeing 747 flying from Tokyo to Honolulu in December of 1997. The flight turned back to Tokyo after encountering the turbulence above the Pacific Ocean. The woman wasn't buckled in her seat and had been found along the aisle, unconscious, before she passed.
The website Turbli came out with a list of turbulence-prone areas in 2023, enumerated as follows:
- Santiago, Chile to Viru Viru/Santa Cruz, Bolivia
- Almaty, Kyrgyzstan to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
- Lanzhou, China to Chengdu, China
- Centrair, Japan to Sendai, Japan
- Milan, Italy to Geneva, Switzerland
- Lanzhou, China to Xianyang, China
- Osaka, Japan to Sendai, Japan
- Xianyang, China to Chengdu, China
- Xianyang, China to Chongqing, China
- Milan, Italy to Zurich, Switzerland
Certain airports also have hotspots of turbulence near them:
- Santiago, Chile
- Natori, Japan
- Wellington, New Zealand
- Sapporo, Japan
- Osaka, Japan
- Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
- Chubu Centrair/Tokoname, Japan
- Lanzhou, China
- Tokyo, Japan
- Christchurch, New Zealand
The website Alternative Airlines says airports located close to the equator tend to have frequent thunderstorms, which are also causes of turbulence. These include Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport, Cancun International Airport, Hong Kong International Airport, Miami International Airport, Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport and Singapore Changi Airport. The routes that tend to have the least turbulence pass over flat areas of both water and land, namely open bodies of water and plains having no mountains and other features that disrupt wind. The area where the Singapore Airlines flight encountered turbulence was over a mountainous area in Myanmar.
Ultimately, air turbulence isn't something to be overly concerned about. Staying buckled in your seat when not moving around the aircraft is a wise precaution. Since turbulence is an inevitable part of air travel, being informed and prepared for it can make your journey more comfortable.
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