Well in your original post you said "aircraft". Now you say "passenger aircraft", well I can point to many examples of "passenger aircraft" since nearly all small planes can carry passengers. What I think you mean is Part 121 Scheduled Commercial Airliner - like a 737 or some such. Well, I think you missed the part in my post...hell let me just quote it This stuff I mention in my quote is why we havent seen a 121 airliner crash as a direct result of Turbulence. They dont fly into active thunderstorms anymore, Because they have onboard radar, and shit.
No, I wouldn't. Pilot error Per NTSB "The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the in-flight separation of the vertical stabilizer as a result of the loads beyond ultimate design that were created by the first officer’s unnecessary and excessive rudder pedal inputs. Contributing to these rudder pedal inputs were characteristics of the Airbus A300-600 rudder system design and elements of the American Airlines Advanced Aircraft Maneuvering Program."
Don't care if your flying FAR part 121 or 135... Agree regarding modern equipment...but there is no predictability for "clear air" turbulence for which the OP started said thread. That prediction equipment is not available and usually is recorded by pilots via "pireps" (to keep other pilots updated as to flight conditions and turbulence)
Isn't the wake turbulence still causal? I thought there were a number of other factors that contributed, like ATC not warning them of the possibility of wake from the aircraft ahead of them. I know the guy cowboyed it, but if there was no wake turbulence, then would he have ripped the tail off? Full disclosure, I did NOT stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
Watching one of those airline disaster shows a few years back it definitely sounded like this was due to the pilot screwing up when he was tap dancing on the pedals waving the rudder back and forth that caused way too much undue stress on the vertical stabilizer.
I didn't ever stay at a Holiday Inn Express so whatever I say would be an outright guess...hindsight is 20/20. 1st question...Casual turbulence? Umm...please explain that one. (Mechanical, Thermal, Frontal and Wind shear are your types) 2nd question...nope, pretty sure without those inputs to rudder that flight crew would have executed an emergency landing. NTSB is 99.9 right and usually end of story. I figure they went into the sim and recreated conditions with same results.
Id put the old microburst crash in the turbulence category. It seems to have been mitigated for the most part.
Yep thats why I started the thread to remind erryone to keep their belt buckled. And then we started drifting...as the beeb does...into other turbulence (and non turbulence) related areas. and bad CAT is the one thing that I was ever worried about while in a plane. Its unseen and somewhat transitory so a plane ahead of you could have been fine and then Wham...you get shaken like a British nanny.
My sister was a flight attendant she told me enough stories about planes abruptly dropping a story or two and turning into a washing machine.
This conversation reminds me of learning about rotor waves in a mountain flying course. We did a deep dive into an incident where a B52 lost most of its vertical stabilizer when encountering severe rotor waves. That gave me very, very healthy respect for flying around the mountains here in CO. Very cool to see them occasionally develop along the Front Range when the clouds turn into that rotor pattern. Beautiful but terrifying at the same time. https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/10-january-1964/
The airplane itself (Jet airliners anyway) aren't going to break up from turbulence alone. Now, if the turbulence causes loss of control and then the pilot overstressed the aircraft during the recovery, that is another thing. Splitting hairs, I guess. I've been in every kind of turbulence. Mountain wave, thunderstorm, clear air, etc, but only one I thought was severe. Going for a break in a huge line of storm cells near Dallas in a turboprop. 20 miles upwind of the storm and we just started getting our asses kicked. I turned around and flew back to DFW. I wrote up the airplane for severe turbulence, which triggers a pretty extensive maintenance inspection. I started to feel guilty about it while taxiing in, and then the "CONTROL DISENGAGE" red light came on. This was a manual lock that could be used to separate the two pilot's control yokes in case one side had a control surface jam, you could still fly with the other one. Obviously something was over stressed. This was back in the days of paper reports and I never did hear what was found during the inspection. Nobody was hurt. My other funny turbulence story: We had this flight attendant named Molly, she was constantly out on leave for various injuries. She fell face first out of the air stair door onto the ramp, broke her elbow when someone rammed her with a catering cart, turbulence injuries, etc. I believe she even got run over by a tug on the ramp. So we're flying Dallas to Tulsa and Molly is commuting home in the back. I said hi when I got on and noticed she was knitting. So we climb out of DFW and we start getting a few bumps. I call the stew and let her know not to try service, it's probably going to be bumpy. As soon as I hung up, I called back and added "and tell Molly to put those damn knitting needles away!" You know if anyone was going to get hurt, 100% it would have been her.
Delta 191 in Dallas, 1985 and USAir 1016 in 1994? I'd consider air moving in an unexpected direction causing the plan to not go where the pilots intend it to go a crash caused by turbulence. I was on a redeye about 10 years ago. Smooth flight and then it sounded like the plane got hit by Thor's hammer and we dropped like a stone. Then smooth again. Pilot's said nothing. A neighbor who flew right seat in a 777 said he thought it must have been a mountain wave. Not a happy experience for me. Also, the guy went from right seat 777 doing international flights to left seat 717. Is that really an upgrade in pay? I know responsibility wise it is. Seems crazy to go from a jumbo to a regional in a pilot's progression. He was in his early 40's at the time.
So, aircraft version of a tank slapper? And the rider thought trying to get it under control by manhandling it was the correct option? Apparently not, same as on two wheels.
