Wake turbulence "incident"
 

Flying into Paris on Friday on an AF A319, we were on approach to CDG and the plane suddenly banked hard, then banked back the other way - A319. Airbakes came on and we obviously slowed a bit....

Steward then came on and said Captain told him we just encountered wake turbulence from the plane in front.

Is this normal for the course now, or an incident as such? In all my years of flying I've never encountered it and it's rare I read about it on here - funnily enough it didn't unsettle me, but spooked everyone else, and I'm normally the nervy one!

Thanks as ever - love this forum for the great wisdom on it :ok:

Perhaps got a little too close, but the question would be why? Did ATC sequence them too close to the preceding, or did your crew not comply with a given speed restriction? We will never know!

Standard wake turbulence separations are there to minimise the risk of encounters, not to eliminate the risk. Some days it just hangs around in the wrong place. Sometimes the separation standards are applied in full and it still goes horribly wrong (see Queens 2001).

Cheers, I suspected as much - it's not something that can be fully avoided.

Plane took it in it's stride ... in a A319, will the plane itself have countered the roll, or would the PF do it? :p

Hi nebpor, I had a very similar experience flying into CDG a couple of years ago, and started this thread to ask the same question you did.

Someone helpfully posted a beautiful video showing exactly how a wake vortex can drift back into the path of the following aircraft.

Thanks Gibon - much appreciated :)

subject
 

I'll just leave this here...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV7p1LXZ1gY