Question about turbulence
Posted by LOUD_NOISES05@reddit | aviation | View on Reddit | 11 comments
I’ve seen a few posts across social media lately really stressing that turbulence has never caused an airplane crash. These posts are so desperate to get this point across that it’s having the opposite impact on me, I’m questioning it as pure PR BS.
Let’s say you’re flying through turbulence and the plane takes some kind of damage. A screw comes loose, a fuel line disconnects, a wire frays - something that would impact the plane’s ability to fly and it eventually crashes. Would that get reported as a turbulence-caused accident? Or would that go down as whatever damage occurred causing the accident?
Cause obviously if the turbulence causes the damage, the turbulence would be at fault. But PR overlords at major corporations have a way of covering things up to protect narratives. It’d be so easy for someone to write “busted fuel line” on a report excluding the cause.
The desperation in these posts made me think about all this. Being totally honest, it wouldn’t impact my desire to travel if there was a turbulence-caused accident. Air travel is still the safest mode of transportation, especially over long distances.
Maybe I’m overthinking it, maybe not. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks!
flyghu@reddit
You've been watching too many movies. That's not how turbulence would cause a plane to fail. And it certainly doesn't go from fine to fail in a single flight because of a few bumps, especially with a camera focused on it like someone should have noticed.
If you're ever on a flight with turbulence toward the upper end of what the plane was designed to handle the only thing with remember is how bad it smelled when you shit yourself. Always pack a change of undies in your carry on.
LOUD_NOISES05@reddit (OP)
This has literally nothing to do with movies. I work in social media. When people are desperate for you to believe something, it’s usually because the truth is detrimental to their narrative
railker@reddit
Or they're just so frustrated at people refusing to believe basic known facts it boggles the mind, ref anyone who works in the field of science or vaccines through the COVID era. I'm not a fan of sitting around watching people spread clearly untrue shit about airplanes that I've worked on for decades, things that I know for an absolute fact but someone in their living room is shouting, 'Well I asked ChatGPT why the airplane crashed and it said xyz'. After the Air India crash there was blatantly false information being spread all over the place from people who like the sound of their own voice too much.
And I guess in follow of the comment below and a reminder of another point to your post I didn't touch on, Turbulence IS an occurrence category in the global system, ICAO publishes a report every year on how aviation is doing. In fact, Turbulence was the highest accident category.
Keeping in mind here, "accident" has a VERY broad definition, and out of 32 in the year 2024, only 2 had aircraft damage other than "none" and only 1 incurred a single fatality. I believe ICAO started tracking it officially around the 2013 safety report for the year 2012 with the "TURB" classification, the recent reports are here > https://www.icao.int/safety-reports < and you can find some older ones towards the 2013 report with some digging, usually on Skybrary.
flyghu@reddit
Read the crash reports. They don't pull punches. In your fuel line example, even if the engine had no fuel and the tanks had usable fuel indicating the severed line caused an engine to fail, you'd need some indication turbulence was the culprit (unlikely) versus systemic or one-off maintenance failure (more likely).
The lack of turbulence listed as the primary cause of a crash does not indicate a cover-up. It does show that turbulence is unlikely to be the primary cause of crashes.
I don't know if it makes you feel better to know that, should you die in an airplane accident, the cause is almost certainly a pilot or mechanic failure rather than bumpy air, but that's just a fact.
BeardySi@reddit
Modern aircraft are designed to withstand the expected turbulent conditions (and quite a bit beyond).
That being said, heavy turbulence can be a factor thst exacerbates some other problem.
Aviation accidents don't happen in isolation - look up the Swiss Cheese Model. Turbulence can be (and has been) one of the holes that line up to cause a crash, however turbulence in itself should not cause an aircraft that's in good condition and being correctly operated to crash.
SillyDeersFloppyEars@reddit
Suspecting the concept of turbulence being safe to fly through as "PR BS" is peak 2026, holy shit. We are regressing.
Optimal-Possession68@reddit
Certified aircraft are designed and built to be extremely reliable. Every critical fastener is safely wired to prevent vibration from loosening it, and there are redundant systems where needed. As for turbulence, the aircraft has what is called a maneuvering speed. If the aircraft is below this speed, there is essentially no way for aerodynamic forces to overcome the structural strength of the airframe. Sadly, the largest contributor to aircraft mishaps is human error. Commercial pilots go through strict certification requirements and lots of training, so the system has minimized that risk as much as possible. Air travel is very safe these days. Millions of folks fly every day with perfect safety. I think at least some of your discomfort comes from the fact that every aircraft mishap gets lots of news reporting. Just imagine if the news covered automobile crashes that same way! No one would want to get in a car. 40,000 people in the US die from automobile crashes every year. No one thinks twice about getting into a car. Other drivers may not be very experienced or drunk, and certainly will be distracted by a phone or food.
zerbey@reddit
The instances of turbulence causing accidents are vanishingly rare, plane manufacturers account for it and over engineer the planes to handle it. Don't worry, and enjoy your flight.
railker@reddit
The thing is that turbulence is an expected condition, design regulations predict and account for it. If a fuel like broke in turbulence, then the fuel line was faulty in design or maintenance.
It'd be like if you built a rescue boat for the USCG and they went out and hit a wave and sank. I mean sure, technically the wave sank the boat. But the whole idea of boats is that you're going to encounter waves. There is no normal scenario where we'd hang our hat and be like man, if only they avoided that wave. No, we'd be wondering what idiot made a rescue boat that couldn't withstand the worst conditions it could expect to be sent out into and then some.
Turbulence is as normal to the sky as currents or waves are to the water. It's all fluid dynamics, and an expected condition of flight. It's nice to not have it, but aircraft aren't designed for the nice days and we don't pull the wingtips up to the ceiling for fun.
Dry_Restaurant_9526@reddit
The examples you've mentioned such as a fuel line disconnecting or a bolt going loose would half almost immediate consequences, which is why they aren't the main causes of accidents. Routine maintenance checks also ensure all items are secured. External factors such as weather may impact internal factors such as pilot error and the engines getting damage, but they don't cause internal errors a lot of the time.
Also, turbulence impacts the whole plane, not just apart of it. When a car suddenly breaks, the car doesn't get damaged because the whole car is stopping at the same time. Because the whole plane is moving at the same time, it's hard for secured items to become unsecured. However when a car engine is vibrating, the
Hot_Net_4845@reddit
Turbulence has never (directly) caused a modern airliner to crash. BOAC 911, a 707, broke apart mid-air after it flew through a mountain wave from Mount Fuji that exerted (IIRC) almost 5g on the aircraft. AA587, for example, flew through wake turbulence, but it was the FO's excessive rudder inputs that caused the vertical stabiliser to separate. It would probably be nearly impossible for turbulence to make a screw come loose, or disconnect a fuel line in a modern airliner. If it somehow did it would probably go something like, "x caused by x following extreme turbulence" or something like that