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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

#231

Post by [deleted] »

JohnMakin wrote: post #194
standardUser wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#232

Post by miki123211 »

dalyons wrote: post #158
etrautmann wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are constantly bombarded with seemingly unnecessary warnings. I frequently assume that these warnings are to insulate a company from legal trouble and not really to protect me. This might be an American perspective.

See: many airlines that still warn to put your phones in airplane mode, despite that being known nonsense for decades

It's not "known nonsense", but not for the reason you think. There's a small risk of your phone connecting to some random carrier located in whatever country you're currently flying over. For some smaller / third-world countries, this can be quite expensive, cents-per-megabyte isn't unheard of.

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

#233

Post by cafebeen »

andybak wrote: post #82
rob74 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup... I still don't understand why people decide to not put on their seatbelt while being seated. It's not like you have a lot more freedom of movement without the seatbelt? And it might just save your life in events like this one.

I've never seen turbulence like this. And until fairly recently I didn't know it was really possible. So it's a bit like "why don't people wear a welding mask while cooking?" It was never even a risk that I had considered before.

It’s more like keeping a fire extinguisher in your kitchen. Some people may never need it, but grease fires happen often enough to plan for it.

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

#234

Post by hbarka »

hbarka wrote: post #190

“A September 2022 study predicts that clear-air turbulence will increase significantly around the globe by the period 2050-2080, in particular along the busiest flight routes, and the strongest type of turbulence will increase the most.” https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/21/world/singapore-airlines-...

https://news.agu.org/press-release/flights-worldwide-face-in... A new study published online in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, has calculated that climate change will significantly increase the amount of severe turbulence worldwide by 2050–2080. Severe turbulence involves forces stronger than gravity, and is strong enough to throw people and luggage around an aircraft cabin.

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

#235

Post by scoofy »

ghaff wrote: post #136
arnon wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single airline says this for the last 15 years at least. On some routes you see lots of loose seatbelts (Middle East, Africa). On European flights, everyone has the seatbelt on for the entire flight.

Loose seatbelts are probably fine. That’s what I do. Presumably that keeps me from getting launched into the ceiling. A lap belt is a compromise anyway. Aircraft crew use more as do car drivers for that matter.

Right but what's the point? If the belt is on very loose, you give your body a chance to gain momentum, which will be redirected when the seat belt catches you, which would lead to serious injury.

The belt doesn't need to be on tight, but it should be relatively snug.

It's just one of those things that is trivial to do, with a very, very low probability to save you from injury, but costs nothing, so why not...

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

#236

Post by xenadu02 »

darkwater wrote: post #137
kayodelycaon wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Air moves and the plane will move with it, subject to inertia. Think of the air like water. (Air has fluid dynamics.)If the water suddenly drops away from a boat, the boat isn’t going to magically hover above the water.

Obviously, but then the boat and all the objects within it would be experiencing the same gravity acceleration, immediately, at the same time.

> Obviously, but then the boat and all the objects within it would be experiencing the same gravity acceleration, immediately, at the same time.

That is not correct. The airplane experiences this uniformly because the wings transmit the forces to the fuselage. But the contents of the aircraft follow Sir Issac Newton and want to continue their previous motion. If the aircraft experiences high enough negative G then anything not strapped down will appear to rise relative to the fuselage.

To put it another way: you need a physical connection (eg seatbelt or cargo strap) to transmit the force in such an event, just as the fuselage needs a connection to the wings to transmit the force.

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

#237

Post by jna_sh »

lurking15 wrote: post #230
jna_sh wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe I mocked anyone, maybe I mocked the idea that anyone who wears a seatbelt on a flight is gripped by fear. I apologise to the concept.

nah it's this covid authoritarianism that blows risks out of proportion and usually with scant evidence and does it in a categorical way that ignores impacts which often have WORSE harms than the thing they're trying to protect against in the flight case, it could very well be that if you were able to count, there's more harm from DVT from sitting in a seat all flight, versus getting up to walk around regularly and p…

Sure, but if someone told me they were getting up for a walk on a flight because they didn’t want to get DVT, I wouldn’t go on a tirade about how their life was ruled by fear. That’s what my original comment was intending to address.

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

#238

Post by xenadu02 »

darkwater wrote: post #225
ajross wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But then you should hurt your butt, not your head as described in the article, no? I still think that if you get your head against the oxygen masks it's because the plane accelerated a lot downwards.

When the airplane experiences high negative G you get propelled upwards at 9.8m/s/s times the negative G. A -1G force cancels the constant +1G force gravity exerts resulting in free-fall or floating. If the negative G force is higher than 1G you are now accelerating upwards relative to the fuselage.

A -2.5G event "pulls" you upward 1.5x harder than falling and you absolutely can die from falling down due to head injury - it happens all the time. In reality it doesn't pull, your inertia simply wants to keep you moving as you were so the top of the fuselage "falls" faster than gravity until it connects with your body and is able to transmit that force to counter your inertia. A better way to transmit that force is a seat belt.

This is exactly the same situation as a car hitting a wall and why you need a seat belt in that scenario too. You and the car are moving forward. The car decelerates. When it does so faster than the friction of you in the seat your inertia carries your body forward. The faster the car stops the more energy you have to impact the windshield/steering wheel/etc. The seat belt functions to transmit the force between your body and the car.

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

#239

Post by avar »

miki123211 wrote: post #232
dalyons wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See: many airlines that still warn to put your phones in airplane mode, despite that being known nonsense for decades

It's not "known nonsense", but not for the reason you think. There's a small risk of your phone connecting to some random carrier located in whatever country you're currently flying over. For some smaller / third-world countries, this can be quite expensive, cents-per-megabyte isn't unheard of.

Every time this is brought up people come out of the woodworks with post-hoc rationale for this rule that has no basis in historical fact. This comment is good example.

Why would the FAA and other aviation regulatory agencies care about your phone bill?

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

#240

Post by yurishimo »

vsnf wrote: post #131
arnon wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single airline says this for the last 15 years at least. On some routes you see lots of loose seatbelts (Middle East, Africa). On European flights, everyone has the seatbelt on for the entire flight.

This behavior is reflected in car attitudes too. Many Japanese drive with a detached seatbelt. Not even the presence of children changes this calculus.

Most Dutch people don’t wear a helmet when riding a bicycle. As e-bikes are becoming more popular, some older people are opting to wear a helmet since the speed is higher, but many still don’t.

It’s not uncommon to see a parent riding around with a kid attached to the bike and neither are wearing a helmet.

I think it is kind of a cultural thing as well as convenience. If you ride a bike to the station to catch a train, then you might need storage or to carry it with you.

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