Wake Turbulence
 

Whilst flying back recently from MAD to LHR at around 32000 feet on an Iberia A320 the aircraft suddenly tilted left then right and almost immediately repeated the process before levelling off again.

Having experienced turbulence on an aircraft regularly before I knew it had felt different from the usual.

The flight deck came on the P.A. and informed us that we had experienced a " very rare occurence of wake turbulence that an aircraft ahead of us had left and we had now descended to get calmer air "

I would like to know just how rare this phenomenon is at that altitude and just how dangerous it can be? or was the pilot being a bit dramatic with this statement?

A previous posting to this forum regarding "Heavy" aircraft by me and this post is purely a coincidence,maybe I should keep quiet!!! :)

I think that with the introduction of reduced vertical separation over Europe, it's going to get more common. It certainly got more common over the Atlantic when they introduced RVSM. It's unpleasant, but not inherently dangerous.