How dangerous is in-flight turbulence?
The tragedy on the Singapore Airlines flight is just the latest episode of terrifying flights. The question, at this point, arises spontaneously
ROMA – How much what happened on Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 is just the latest episode of turbulence that puts passengers’ lives at risk. The latest one to affect Italy, that of August 2023 from Milan to Atlanta. The question, in these cases, arises spontaneously: is turbulence really dangerous? To answer, it is first necessary to understand what is meant by “turbulence”.
THE SAFEST TRANSPORT IN THE WORLD
However, let’s start from an assumption: the plane is the safest means of transport in the world. The statistics say so. Transforming numbers into probabilities, research from Harvard University, reported by Focus, tells us that there is a one in 11 million chance of losing your life during a flight, one in 185,000 that this happens in a car, one in 10,000 on a bicycle and even one in 5,000 on a motorbike.
WHAT ARE TURBULENCES?
National Geografich Italia< /strong> explains to us that “these are chaotic and irregular vortices of air which, due to different forces, alter the normal calm of the sky. If you have ever happened to observe a thread of smoke that rises calmly and suddenly divides into many small irregular vortices, then you’ve seen one
The scientific magazine explains that “just like the waves that crash on the seafront,the air also forms waves when it meets the mountain ranges: partly it overcomes the mountains and continues uniformly, whilein another part it accumulates against the mountains themselves and can do nothing but rise upwards. they can propagate in the form of large and light oscillations in the atmosphere, or they can divide into numerous tumultuous currents which we call turbulence“.
CAN THEY BE PREDICTED?
National GEeografich responds by quoting Robert Sharman – expert on these phenomena and researcher for the United States National Center for Atmospheric Studies (NCAR): “Although weather forecasts and pilot reports are useful in avoiding the turbulence zones, Sharman explains that these are not effective enough tools. Meteorological models are not able to predict turbulence at the level of the individual airplane and pilots often make mistakes in reporting them with a deviation of several tens of kilometers. . AtNCAR, Sharman has been working since 2005 on create more precise tools that identify very short-term turbulence (with the so-called “nowcasting”).
WHAT TO DO IN CASE OF TURBULENCE?
NG responds with another source: “Heather Poole, flight attendant and author of the book Cruising Attitude, recommends flying early in the morning and sitting in the seats as far forward as possible. Turbulence occurs are more noticeableat the back of the airplane. Keep your seatbelt fastened even when the warning light is off – adds Poole –because having it even a little loose will prevent you from riding. bang your head on the overhead bins. Do not try to shake hands with children across the aisle or return the coffee to the cabin crew who are trying to sort out loose items. Also, warn the attendants to flight of your anxious tendency: they will know how to take care of you.”
FINALLY, HOW DANGEROUS ARE THEY?
The simplest answer to give is: not much. Planes are designed specifically to be able to deal with this type of atmospheric phenomena. Every day thousands of planes face air vortices without any problem and passengers, apart from some slight discomfort, are not affected. ì