Severe Turbulence
 

Hi All,

I am a PPL holder and have been flying for over 10 years so have had my fair share of turbulence in light aircraft and as a passenger on commercial flights.

I arrived back from San Francisco earlier today and have experienced what I can only describe as the scariest thing in my entire life. Flying British Airways 747-400 from SFO, we were about an hour into the flight and the cabin crew had just finished handing out the first food serving as we started to experience some mild turbulence. Enough to make a nervous flyer uncomfortable but nothing than concerned me and the seatbelt signs were left off.

After a few minutes of this the turbulence went from mild to violent with the 747 being thrown around like I could never imagined. This started to make me a little uncomfortable, even as an experienced pilot and passenger, the seatbelt signs remained off and the cabin crew were still going about their business.

All of a sudden the 747 was flung violently upwards then slammed downwards as is if someone had hold of it by the tail. The engines had a clear loss of power and the aircraft went into a nose down attitude and began to bank right, all while still violently shaking, passengers screaming and trays drinks flung around the cabin. To be honest, I wasnt sure we were going to recover.

The seatbelt signs went on as the flight crew tried to regain control of the aircraft and put power back onto the engines. While they managed to do this we remained flying in these conditions for a further 45 minutes or so, the longest of my life I might add, the intermitently violent spells of turbulence until we reached the Atlantic and leaving Canada behind.

I spent the remaining 6 hours of the flight terrified at every jolt and its left me feeling I never want to get in an aircraft ever again! Now while I hope that won't be the case it has definately unnerved me significantly and I'm questioning whether I would want to feel that way again.

Has anyone else ever experienced this?:sad:

WOW. Sounds like quite an ordeal.

I like many others i'm sure, always feel safer when i am in charge.

When i drive a car fast it doesn't worry me as i know my limits and know i can handle it.

When i sit in with someone who also drives it fast. I am terrified.

Its probably just human emotion.

P.S. I'm sure you will get over your ideal. It would have been good to have a word with the pilot when your were disembarking to see what actually happened. The less big a deal he made of it probably would have comforted you perhaps.

If the seatbelt signs remained 'off' untill the last bump, was it really that bad? usually airline flight crew are only too happy to have it 'on' even in very light chop.

Shaggy, I can assure you yes it was that bad, given the cabin crew were instructed to cease service and remain seated and belted for almost an hour of flight is an indication of that. The lack of seatbelt only echoed the cabin crews comments which were that the turbulence was completely unexpected.

I don't believe that turbulence would cause the engines to power down. It's a bit of a guess, but my first impression would be that they were merely slowing down to best turbulence penetration speed. Certainly not "struggling to regain control"!

Sounds bad, did the flight crew come on the PA to reassure the pax? I would have thought an actual engine flame-out would result in a formal report, did you check?

I've only had it really bad once on a commercial flight LAX-LHR when everyone's drinks hit the overhead lockers and anyone not buckled in was in zero-g for a short time. I wasn't too worried as these days an aircraft breaking up in turbulence is extremely rare. Risk of injury when not strapped in is the main problem. I certainly always have my seat belt on when not actually out of my seat.

Odd that, my son had exactly the same thing Brisbane-Perth last week. He's a very experienced business flyer but the turbulence was so bad he just wanted to get off. Passengers were crying etc and the TD's were strapped in for most of the flight, it lasted for 5 hours.

Apparently they were flying against an exceptional jet stream and couldn't get above FL270 otherwise they would have been virtually hovering. The return trip that evening took 3hrs 40 minutes (normally 5 and a bit hours.)

I remember flying back from Portugal in 2000 when we had the bad storms in UK. The captain came on and said we were flying against a 120 kt headwind....

Katamarino, I didn't offer a reason for the power down of the engines, I said there was a simultaneous noticeable loss of power. Whether this was the pilots doing or not the fact the aircraft had been put into a nose down right bank attitude does not suggest full control. Also the pilot applied high thrust on the engines shortly after and maintained a higher thrust throughout the turbulence.

Michael, several passengers did end up wearing eachothers drinks. As for the cabin crew I was quite disappointed as the pa consisted of 'the captain had put on the seatbelt sign due to severe turbulence, he has also instructed the cabin crew to cease services and remain seated also. He expects this to last 20-30 minutes'. I always keep my seatbelt strapped and while I know that it's highly unlikely an aircraft would ever break ip these days it still scared the s@@t out of me.

A reminder to always a seatbelt, and that flying at 500mph, 38,000 ft above the earth in an aluminium tube is not as simple as people now consider.

Aside from this, it still amazes me the risks that some private flyers will take with the weather, especially given their lack of experience.

Thing that's a good point, we had a 110-120kt tail wind according to the 'moving map' info until we got out over the Atlantic and the flight time was 9 hours against the usual 10

If you're a pilot you'll know that "temporary changes in attitude or altitude" are part of the definition of turbulence. So, following your logic, that means that any aircraft that has ever encountered turbulence was "out of control"! I'd expect that sensationalism from a journalist, not a pilot :)

From what the OP describes I would think the flightdeck crew were busy trying to fight the unusual attitudes due to the turbulence for the first minute or so of the incident. After all they are also just human and the seatbelt sign might have slipped their mind(s). If Clear Air Turb hits when cruising near maximum performance altitude there isn't much "room" to stay out of both high and low speed buffet zones on the speed tape/airspeed indicator and that would have held their attention for sure!

The fact that engine noise died out could just be due to throttling back if an overspeed was imminent (often the case on my 737NG when caught by a sudden wind change that can accompany turbulence).

Terryp - why don't you post in SLF or questions? - maybe including the flight number and date in the title might get an answer from a BA person with more info.

I do think it's a bit of the poor show if you heard nothing from the flightdeck crew....

Katamarino, yes you are correct and as a pilot, if I'd have been the pilot in command that logic would have indeed been applied as it has been before in my flying experience. Wilco makes a very valid point in that when you are not in control, i.e. the passenger, the reaction to such a situation is somewhat different.

Thanks Piton very helpful reply, I might just do that see if I get a response. We were at our cruising altitude 37000 feet so you explanation makes sense, it would have been good to catch the pilot on disembarking but to be honest the main thing on my mind at that time was getting off :)

Was this at night, or in daylight?

Flying over the Rockies can be extremely turbulent at times. Used to commute fairly often from LHR to SFO via JFK and the usual flight I took from JFK to SFO was an American Airlines flight AA5? or similar. This was back in the late 70, early 80's. I always stayed strapped in as on more than one occasion I had seen trays/drinks passengers and flight attendants doing the zero G routine. Even heard the Captain [AA had an audio channel for aviation geeks] ask for a number of level changes and say at one point "I have been flying this route for years and I have never had so much turbulence." Because of nearby traffic also requesting level changes we often just had to grin and bear it.

It was seeing the amount of wing flex that kept my eyes wide open!

The worst I ever had was coming back to London from LA on Virgin's A400-600 a couple of years ago. I knew it was going to be bad when the captain said "the good news is that our flying time is just 9hrs today, the bad news is that that means high turbulent winds". It turned out be like the OP described and people were crying. A gentleman in the middle row next to me was screaming out "oh my god, we're gonna die!" constantly, which didn't help:eek:

Even though I know how tough they're built, it wasn't very enjoyable experience and I was scared. Somehow when you're driving yourself it feels less bad even when it's bad.

That's what I keep telling my girlfriend :)

The reality is that all the objectively scary flights she has had were in airliners, whereas flying with me the most she had were a few bumps.

But there is a big psychological difference in that most people trust the two pilots up front who wear smart uniforms, many have great hair (grey is very reassuring), they speak with posh (reassuring) accents, and everybody assumes that nothing will happen.

Structural failures are indeed extremely rare in the USA and Europe but plenty of flights are extremely rough because provided that the weather etc is within the legal parameters you have to fly else you get sacked.

terryp,

with all due respect, but as a PPL holder you should be aware about the definition of "severe turbulence".

The situation you describe was far from that. In severe turbulence, sorry for the drastic words, you would have seen people sticking in the overhead bins when not fastened on their seats. Given the fact that there were FAs at work at this time, this was far from severe.

I'm not a 747 driver, but nonetheless, you can take my word: this ugly old thing will still smile at the turbulence you're experiencing while you get bruises from your seat belt. Don't mind...

I guess there was just mild turbulence forecast in the area so the guys on the best seats decided not to overreact. When the turbulence got worse they (or AT?) throttled down and they changed altitude and direction trying to minimize the rodeo :-)

Don't take this as an offense, please. I just want to tell you: You're safer as you think you are in turbulence. When was the last time a plane threw away vital parts in turbulence (flown by a professional crew, that is...).

Kind regards,
Peter

Terry

I have only experienced severe turbulence once. Usually one pilots description of mild, moderate, heavy, or severe will vary by what they have experienced themselves so one pilots description of mild can be reported as moderate by another.

I flew some PAX to Nice. We had a warning to expect severe turbulence between FL200 and FL300.

Descending from FL360 I warned the PAX to secure their seatbelts as we were going to experience a very bumpy ride.

The air all the way down into Nice was as smooth as a babies bottom much to my embarassement as I am sure the PAX must have thought what sort of Wally Captain they had up front.

Taking the aircraft back to the UK empty we took off on a more northerly SID passing FL200 all hell let loose with the aircraft almost uncontrollable. Violent Pitches and wing drops. Cupboards flying open items flying everywhere.

I asked for an immediate climb to above FL300 due to severe turbulence.
FL200 to 300 normally shows around 1000 fpm in the Citation back to 600 fpm in the high 20s.

The VSI was showing over 3000 fpm all the way through FL300 where the air went dead smooth.

Pace

Reports should be standardised, but the experience will depend to quite a large extent on the size and wing loading of the aircraft. Light wing loadings will be more affected by gusts.

Just for the record, ICAO doc 4444, appendix 1, detailed reporting requirement says: