Ben Nikpour - Week 4: The Terrors of Turbulence in the Sky
A couple of weeks ago I traveled to Virginia. I took a plane from Fort Lauderdale International Airport to Dulles International Airport on what was said to be a short routine flight. I was visiting family in Virginia for a few days and I was traveling alone. When it comes to flying, I get scared by the smallest things. Any bump, turn, drop, or noise will send me into panic mode. I got on the plane and everything was going as normal until around forty-five minutes into the flight when we hit major turbulence. Out of nowhere, the plane dropped hundreds of feet. Everyone on the plane screamed and honestly, I thought I wasn’t making it off the plane. They even dropped the air masks for people who needed more oxygen.
Since I was already scared of planes, I did not react well to this situation. I just sat on the plane praying and crying till the plane was stabilized but I was still in shock. For the rest of the flight I was terrified. I even attempted to text my family members just in case the plane and I didn’t make it. Looking back at it, maybe this was a little insane especially because I knew I had no service twenty thousand feet above land. This whole catastrophe led me to do a little research.
I wanted to know what major turbulence really is and if it was dangerous. On the plane, even though all the passengers were freaking out, the pilots seemed like everything was normal. Right after the major drop the pilots went onto the PA system and said “sorry for the inconvenience, this sometimes happens when traveling through this area.” If the pilots weren’t that worried then the plane couldn’t be in that much danger, right?
What I found is that turbulence is a common occurrence and is not that dangerous when dealt with correctly. I actually found that most accidents and injuries involving turbulence are caused by passengers not wearing seatbelts.
A pilot named Jennifer from Nashville, Tennessee commented on turbulence saying that “in the early days of commercial jets, there were a few cases where turbulence caused structural damage resulting in an accident. Thinking as far back as the 1980s, I do not know of any case where turbulence caused an accident.” She also said, “airplanes are designed to withstand much more turbulence than most people realize.” This was so interesting to me. My whole life I believed the main way planes crashed was due to turbulence when in reality most crashes occur while taking off or landing the plane.
I learned so much more about turbulence too. Did you know that there are different types of turbulence or that turbulence is more common in some places than others? For example, Florida is commonplace for turbulence which makes sense because my plane hit turbulence off the coast of Florida. The turbulence that my plane experienced would most likely be classified as severe turbulence. In reality, while it was scary, it was not very dangerous. While it is possible, turbulence will rarely ever cause extreme damage or put your plane at risk of crashing. It is, however, very important to wear your seatbelts when in turbulence to avoid injuries caused by being thrown out of your seat. Without learning this information, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get on a plane to fly back home to Florida.
Have you ever dealt with a bad flight? What was your worst experience with turbulence?
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That's really scary. I've always imagined how I'd react if something like that happened when I was on a plane, and I'd probably have reacted like you.
ReplyDeleteOne of the more recent flights I've been on which was a connection flight to Turkey, there was about 30 minutes of terrible turbulence. I find it helpful to watch the flight attendants have absolutely no reaction to the big bumps. It helps me calm down!
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