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One dead as London-Singapore flight hit by turbulence

bbc.com

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Re: One dead as London-Singapore flight hit by turbulence

#191

Post by ajross »

darkwater wrote: post #94

Horrible news. Speaking of the physics involved, I was thinking: if it's just free fall, caused by gravity and no air sustaining the wings, this should not happen, right? Some random Quora answer says that it's because during turbulence there is actually air pressing wings down and accelerating them down faster than gravity, and that's why you hit the ceiling. Intuitively that makes sense but, can anyone confirm? Edi…

Free-fall, or really slightly negative G's, will lift you up out of your seat more or less gently. It won't hurt you.

But when the aircraft regains lift, which can happen rapidly in turbulent conditions, you will accelerate downward relative to the cabin. And the plane is design-tested to something like 5G. It can hurt you very badly.

Re: One dead as London-Singapore flight hit by turbulence

#192

Post by ec109685 »

marze wrote: post #161
marcinzm wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - These conditions are unpredictable and have little warning Not true at all. The vast vast majority of turbulence incidents are very well predictable. It's not 1930 anymore. > - The conditions that lead to uncomfortable or dangerous turbulence are not at all uncommon. Except your flawed logic in the previous point flows to this point. The question isn't turbulence but unpredictable severe turbulence which is much…

If “the vast majority … are predictable”, why wouldn’t the airline pilot warn the passengers in advance?

Pilots warn about upcoming turbulence all the time. Sometimes so much they don’t do food and beverage service because they are worried about it.

Re: One dead as London-Singapore flight hit by turbulence

#193

Post by sib »

marze wrote: post #161
marcinzm wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - These conditions are unpredictable and have little warning Not true at all. The vast vast majority of turbulence incidents are very well predictable. It's not 1930 anymore. > - The conditions that lead to uncomfortable or dangerous turbulence are not at all uncommon. Except your flawed logic in the previous point flows to this point. The question isn't turbulence but unpredictable severe turbulence which is much…

If “the vast majority … are predictable”, why wouldn’t the airline pilot warn the passengers in advance?

They do. I've flown many (more than 100x in some years) and I can't count how many times that pilot / co-pilot has announced upcoming turbulence and turned on the seat beat light.

Re: One dead as London-Singapore flight hit by turbulence

#194

Post by JohnMakin »

standardUser wrote: post #189
PaulRobinson wrote: post #8

Tragic, horrid and going to make a lot of nervous flyers more nervous. I've been through some pretty heavy turbulence in my time, but thankfully nothing this severe. I've been through enough though to know that a lot of people don't take it very seriously. I've been on flights with screaming passengers, and _very_ quiet British Marines, both in reaction to some pretty nasty air, and I'm always surprised that turbulen…

A great tip I heard long ago for nervous flyers - whenever their is turbulence, look at the flight staff. If they're going about business as usual and look otherwise relaxed, which is almost always the case, you've got nothing to worry about. Consider them turbulence experts, and if the experts aren't concerned you don't need to be either.

This tip fails when the flight crew starts to look worried/concerned. But, I guess at that point, you have reason to be nervous. This happened during severe turbulence to me once, but it had the effect of making me a calmer flyer because it really was pretty bad (no one flew into the ceiling but they'd already made sure everyone had seatbelts fastened) and I ended up being fine.

Re: One dead as London-Singapore flight hit by turbulence

#195

Post by Aurornis »

marcinzm wrote: post #17
PaulRobinson wrote: post #8

Tragic, horrid and going to make a lot of nervous flyers more nervous. I've been through some pretty heavy turbulence in my time, but thankfully nothing this severe. I've been through enough though to know that a lot of people don't take it very seriously. I've been on flights with screaming passengers, and _very_ quiet British Marines, both in reaction to some pretty nasty air, and I'm always surprised that turbulen…

When I walk in a city I don't spend my time constantly scanning the sky and every building around me for a potential falling object. Or research the structural history of every bridge I drive over then spend hours avoiding certain ones. Or a hundred other rare things that do kill people but statistically not often. Everyone dies one day and everyone has a single life. I don't see the point of spending that one life i…

> When I walk in a city I don't spend my time constantly scanning the sky and every building around me for a potential falling object. Or research the structural history of every bridge I drive over then spend hours avoiding certain ones.

Of course not, because all of those scenarios are extremely high effort for low reward.

Wearing a seatbelt on an airplane is very low effort and takes a few seconds at most.

Your examples are in no way comparable to putting on a seatbelt.

This is the type of fallacious thinking that gets people in trouble: Instead of discussing the issue at hand, they try to substitute a ridiculous, exaggerated alternative scenario and argue against that instead.

You don't have to look very deep to see why your example scenarios, which take enormous amounts of time and effort, are pure strawman arguments in the context of a simple discussion about seatbelts.

There's a second fallacy wherein people try to argue an "all or nothing" perspective: They list out exaggerated things that they can't/won't do (like looking in the sky all the time) and then try to make the claim that because they can't do all of those exaggerated things, they shouldn't be expected to do any safety-related thing. It's another fallacious argument tactic.

Re: One dead as London-Singapore flight hit by turbulence

#196

Post by DominikPeters »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #118
Intermernet wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently flew ANA and they advise all passengers to keep their seatbelts on at all times when seated. It seems like simple advice. I do the same thing when I'm driving. I don't find it uncomfortable in the slightest, even sleeping. Maybe others have a different experience, but turbulence isn't that rare. I've had serious turbulence on many flights. Probably the worst was final approach / landing in Frankfurt with p…

I've never been on any airplane where they didn't say you have to keep your seatbelt fastened at all times when seated.

I've just browsed some old safety videos on YouTube, and in the U.S. this recommendation seems to have appeared in the early 90s (e.g. Northwest 1993 https://youtu.be/rUQtG0a_7d0?t=127), while being absent in the late 80s (e.g. Pan Am 1988 https://youtu.be/m3zj-oUm7vc?t=33).

Re: One dead as London-Singapore flight hit by turbulence

#199

Post by zeekaran »

standardUser wrote: post #189
PaulRobinson wrote: post #8

Tragic, horrid and going to make a lot of nervous flyers more nervous. I've been through some pretty heavy turbulence in my time, but thankfully nothing this severe. I've been through enough though to know that a lot of people don't take it very seriously. I've been on flights with screaming passengers, and _very_ quiet British Marines, both in reaction to some pretty nasty air, and I'm always surprised that turbulen…

A great tip I heard long ago for nervous flyers - whenever their is turbulence, look at the flight staff. If they're going about business as usual and look otherwise relaxed, which is almost always the case, you've got nothing to worry about. Consider them turbulence experts, and if the experts aren't concerned you don't need to be either.

So I should start panicking when I see them back out and strap in?

Because that's what happened on my last flight. I didn't panic, I just felt sick.

Re: One dead as London-Singapore flight hit by turbulence

#200

Post by banish-m4 »

sva_ wrote: post #61

> "So I started bracing for what was happening, and very suddenly there was a very dramatic drop so everyone seated and not wearing seatbelt was launched immediately into the ceiling," 28-year-old student Dzafran Azmir said. > "Some people hit their heads on the baggage cabins overhead and dented it, they hit the places where lights and masks are and broke straight through it." That's why I try to keep my seatbelt on…

I think it should be required industry-wide. If you are seated, seatbelts must be worn and no loitering standing up. It is the case in most countries seatbelts must be worn while terrestrial vehicles are in motion.
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