Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Air France Flight 447: Turbulence CAN Bring Down a Jet

The crash of the Air France flight caught my attention, not only because of the tragedy itself, but because I'm a nervous flier and I tell myself that jets just don't drop out of the sky.

More specifically, whenever I'm flying and we encounter "rough air" (my second favorite flying euphemism, with "water landing" being the first) I tell myself (repeatedly and urgently) that turbulence can't bring down a jet plane. Why, they fly planes into hurricanes!

Turns out, yes turbulence CAN bring one down. Here's what a commercial pilot blogging at Flight Level 390 has to say:

"A thunderstorm is a violent and scary entity. It has the power, and I mean real power, to easily rip the wings from an A330, or any other make or model of aircraft. No problem whatsoever."

Oh great.

On a recent flight to Louisville we encountered "rough air." And the woman sitting on the window grabbed the arm of the man in the center seat. Apologetically, she said "I'm a nervous flier and my husband isn't here. Do you mind?" He didn't, of course. And a few bumps later I started eyeing his arm closest to me.

"Turbulence can't bring down airplanes" I told myself, and quelled my desire to grab the man's arm.

Now I don't think I could be that calm.

So how do I buy airline tickets for seats next to hot, tolerant men?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It wasn't turbulence. It was faulty pitot tubes.