10,000'.......or 200?
 

Macau Daily Times - 30 hurt in turbulence on China Airlines flight says airline

30 injured because of clear-air-turbulence - Taiwan News Online

Both report an "up and down motion" of 200' or 60m lasting about 10 seconds.

Seat belts lights on as crew had already detected turbulence on radar.

I agree with Vonkluffen and ACMS as well, true CAT is not that common in that area, however large CB's and TS certainly are! Only takes a few moments of inattention and ' WHACK ' :ooh: ( so I'm told ;-) ) . Be careful out there!

Buggs

"Seat belts lights on as crew had already detected turbulence on radar"

can someone tell me how do you detect CAT on your radar?

You can't see CLEAR air turb.

They must have seen water drop intensity colours and interpreted their radar accordingly.:ok:

Why would any pilot cover up the windshield with newspaper or meal tray??? What's the point of doing this?

According to newspaper reports CAL has just done it again on a flight from HKG to BKK. Several pax and crew injured. I find it hard to believe it was CAT. As others have said, it's far more likely they flew through the top of a CB.

epc

The newspaper is there to stop rays from the sun damaging delicate skin and eyes :E

covering up the window
 

I'm not a pilot. It seems a really unsafe thing to do to cover the windshields. Are the Boings and Airbuses and traffic control now so advanced now as to render the eyes irrelevant in flying?

Absolutely not!!

I believe the majority of these "unexpected" turbulence encounters are not real CAT at all but the crew have flown through a CB top. No way are they going to admit to inattention to the tilt or gain controls or they were failing to operate the radar correctly. Mysterious sudden CAT encounter covers a lot of sins and no one can prove otherwise.

Slats One, are you sure about the "scheduled service" flight home of the VC10? I flew with David (Flash) Philips, the Captain of the Andes upset flight, many times in later years on the DC10, and I believe he told me the aeroplane was patched up, but empty-ferried home to LGW where the true extent of the damage was then discovered.
Michael