Most of the recent widely publicized CAT injuries have been on long distance flights between Europe and South Asia.
One thing that’s happened in the past couple of years along that air corridor is the squeezing of flight paths out of Ukrainian, Russian, Israeli, and Afghan airspace.
Planes taking more circuitous routes, giving them less options to avoid weather conditions, much of the flight over hot mountainous terrain… could be a contributing factor to increasing incidents of dangerous turbulence affecting flights, even if the conditions themselves haven’t become more common.
Weird that this is the top-rated comment, as it's directly contradicted by the heat maps in the article, which show increases in CAT all over the globe, in many places that are not routes between Europe and South Asia.
(Also consider that the principal question the article tries to answer is not "are there more CAT incidents?" but simply "is there more CAT?")
I glanced at a few current (as of today) routes, e.g. CDG->SIN[0], which don't fly anywhere near the areas of heavy CAT noted by the heat maps. Hell, let's take a look at the flight mentioned, the LHR-SIN SQ321[1], where a passenger died in may (though, as the article notes, it was later determined not to be CAT): that one doesn't fly through any high-CAT areas (and in fact does fly through Russian airspace).
> giving them less options to avoid weather conditions
The entire characterization of CAT is that it is unavoidable because the cause often doesn't have all that much to do with weather conditions, and even when it does, you don't get (enough) advance warning.
"Most of the recent widely publicized CAT injuries have been on long distance flights between Europe and South Asia."
OK but you'll need a citation for your assertion and that is only about reported CAT via media sources and not what the article is on about - CAT events worldwide.
The article invokes evidence across the entire planet and cites Prosser et al with 1979 vs 2020 graphics, evidence and discussion. It also concludes that jet streams are where CAT events are intensifying.
Edit: I just realized that the chart is increase of probability between 1979 and 2020, so to modify my comment I’ll just say that it wasn’t just that geographic region that saw an increase. It seemed to correlate with the jet streams
Well the study in the link has a chart of some sort of duration weighted probability of CAT (which somehow ranges from 0 to 2.5 instead of 0 to 1?), which would correct for the total volume of flights because it’s a ratio. It’s more likely that the jet streams are getting more turbulent due to climate change.
An increase in the frequency of clear air turbulence doesn't necessarily entail an increase in reportable accidents and incidents. The NTSB is only notified when a specific set of criteria are met. See 49 CFR Part 830 for details. If the increase in turbulence is all light to moderate turbulence with no serious injuries, there's nothing to report to the NTSB.
Also, they just looked at 2 years, so there could be cherry picking. Jet stream is affected by el nino. 1979 was weak el nino, 2020 was moderate la nina.
Certainly no detectable trend in that data. But the accident frequency is so low that the random variation dominates and makes it impossible to distinguish any trend.
What is demonstrably increasing is CAT, due to climate change. But considering how infrequent these incidents are we might not see a clear increase for several decades.
There is a big factor out there that is 'masking a rise in incidence of CAT from accident stats'. It's Aerospace Engineers and the aviation engineering and safety community.
--
Most CAT events (seen so far) are survivable by current aircraft designs, so you can have an increase in CAT without a spike in crashes and other accidents.
Could be an inverse relationship, too - the more frequently they occur the more experience, training and guidance the pilot, and the other crew members get to manage it: how to control the the airplane, urge passengers to wear seatbelts more, etc.
The article seems to say that other than direct passenger injury, the issue is premature airframe fatigue, which I guess that if remarked on inspections, does not end up in the incident category.
Yeah, you should have more concern over human error and Boeing than this. But, boy, the more I have flown and the older I am, the more I get anxious during turbulence when I fly.
Well, assuming that there is indeed more turbulence, that could also mean more vigilance against accidents, so that could even itself out as safety regulations get stricter than in the past. Also, this is mentioned in the conclusions:
> The report includes an important discussion of the risk to unrestrained occupants onboard aircraft, including flight attendants – who account for nearly 80% of those seriously injured in turbulence-related accidents. Key recommendations in the report are intended to help ensure better protections
for flight attendants
... which makes me think of two more possibilities:
1 - I suspect any careless flight attendant involved in a turbulence-related accident would learn their lesson after the first time, and take better safety precautions. Perhaps that is a stabilizing factor on the number of accidents, since the number of flight attendants who need to learn that lesson the hard way is probably more a function of how many new flight attendants enter the field than it is a product of how much turbulence there is.
2 - Flight attendants under-report minor accidents so they don't get into trouble for not respecting safety rules
Of course, this is pure speculation (and assuming that the premise of there being more CAT incidents holds up), I'm sure the actual document goes into this kind of thing in more detail but I don't have the time to dig through 115 papers.
> The Prosser report outlines one of the primary reasons for the increase in CAT events as the intensification of the jet streams, driven by the warming of the planet. As global temperatures rise, the temperature gradients between the equator and the poles become more pronounced, strengthening the jet streams and increasing the likelihood of turbulence .
I was under the impression that, as the poles are MORE affected by global warming, the jet stream is becoming weaker? is that incorrect?
That is correct, as a longer term trend at least while paradoxically, we are also seeing periods of record strength in the Jet Streams.
The truth is there are many oscillations and teleconnections(themselves being impacted by global warming) which influences this temperature gradient on a local/seasonal basis. QBO, El Nino/La Nina and mountain torque events to name a few can move and shift heat at the tropopause in a short period of time and is why we see this wider variance at both ends of the spectrum.
I think the seasonality of the polar environment is a critical factor - while warming is expect to decrease the average equator-to-pole temperature gradient (as all models predict faster polar warming than equatorial warming by a large margin), winter is still winter as the polar axis is tilted, so steep atmospheric gradients are expected over that seasonal period.
The poles warm FASTER than the equator. Thus, the global temperature gradients are getting smaller.
And as a result, not only does the Jetstream weaken: as a result, weather patterns become more stable which leads to greater continuous periods of draught or flooding.
Shameless plug here. I work at SkyPath (https://skypath.io) we monitor and collect CAT data from 1000's of flights in real time and predict CAT events with the help of an AI model. Pilots are extremely happy with our solution, we signed several of the major airlines in US and have active evaluation programs with several others.
I see the site claims to save fuel, is this in the form of providing routing? I assume that patching data needs to get in to the autopilot system at some point, how does that work?
This type of technology would be incredible in my opinion, and I’m also of the opinion that increased turbulence (assuming it is actually increasing) could be easily tied to climate change and the recent warming of the pacific and Atlantic oceans due to regulations on sulfur in cargo ship fuel (but that’s a tangent to this topic)
There is also just a huge increase in global air travel, which should increase the number of total incidents. The number of commercial flights doubled between 2004 and 2019, and is expected to continue on that trend for some time.
Could this be internet-enabled flight bias? Now that we have more and more WiFi enabled flights, more people posting about it on socials...so public awareness grows but as indicated before only incident-related stats are being recorded. One can extrapolate if incidents including damage or injury are not increasing per capita of flights it's probably not a trend.
I hate flying with passion and get extremely scared when flying through turbulences but, there was a journalist in my country, that also had experience as a pilot and said once on TV that during turbulences, is one of the safest moments in a plane. I don't remember the reasons but is there anybody in here with knowledge in the field that could confirm/deny this?
That's just not true. No turbulence is better than turbulence.
That said, experiencing light chop on a modern large airplane presents no danger to the airframe or properly secured passengers. You really should be strapped in, though, especially if you're on a small plane. Wake turbulence, for example, actually does present a significant risk to smaller aircraft.
It is safe because you are flying. Airplanes almost never have issues at altitude. Problems occur when closer to the ground. Landing/takeoff are the most dangerous times, the transitions between flying and not flying.
I feel the same way about flying but a boating enthusiast friend bought up an interesting analogy. He asked me if I enjoyed boating and I said yes. Then he asked me if it was fun when you run over waves bouncing around and I said yes. Then he said that is exactly what turbulence is - wakes and waves in the air the plane is bouncing on so relax and enjoy the ride. Kinda made me feel a little better since I could now visualize what is going on but still - eh, Id rather be on terra firma.
This seems like one of those topics that seems to be eliciting some response we might consider normal if it was code switched into Bay Area or NYC speak but seems to be getting a lot of pushback because it sounds like it's coming from particular airline boosters.
This isn't to say either of those things really happen just it sometimes sure seems like it.
I can't tell if it's just me or something with flights but recently when I take flights I get an intense headache that isn't similar to other headaches.
For a few months, I used to have headaches too in the last 10 minutes before landing of every flight. Since I had a surgery for my sinusitis a few months before, I thought it was because of some air pressure buildup in my maxillary sinuses that wasn't returning to normal air pressure fast enough. Now every time I am close to landing I make sure the air circulates through both nasal cavities very well and I haven't had any problems anymore.
"Are Clear Air Turbulence events happening more often?
In a word, yes. Recent studies have shown a significant increase in the frequency and intensity of CAT conditions over the past few decades. This increase is linked to several factors, most notably climate change."
We've had this invisible hand of the market to regulate ourselves. Now we have the invisible hand of the planet.
It won't be a fun ride either.
Commercial pilot here. Instead of climate change, we should be talking about continuous descent profiles (CDPs) that have become more common in the past years 5-10 years. These profiles with idle engines allow for a smoother, more fuel-efficient descent by reducing the need for level-off segments. However, CDPs can increase the perception of turbulence during descent. This is because aircraft remain at higher altitudes for longer periods, where atmospheric instability and wind shear are more pronounced. This increased turbulence is not due to climate change but rather the result of these optimized descent procedures aimed at reducing fuel consumption and minimizing environmental impact.
Interesting! I didn’t know that descent profiles had changed this decade. Now that you mention it, I seem to recall far less leveling off than when I was younger, at the very least you’ve incepted the idea into my head now.
Also worth noting that to a passenger, CAT is the worst feeling you’ll have on most flights — the “oh shit we’re not flying anymore” vibe is real bad, and usually when you hit proper air again, the sudden jerk feels bad as well.
As someone with like 8 flight hours to my name, I’ll say to a learning pilot, stalling feels much worse than CAT would, it’s a different sort of not flying, it’s like “oh shit the plane forgot how to fly, what now”.
If plane wings were hinged (allowing a wing to flop down, but not up), then even the worst turbulence couldn't cause negative G in the cabin. That would pretty much eliminate injuries.
Obviously the wings need to lock into place for landing, and many structural elements of the craft would need to be redesigned.
One day we will research a boson particle that can be fired at the air and cause an abrupt polarization allowing for planes to travel through with very little air resistance.
> [Clear Air Turbulence] is particularly common around the tropopause, the boundary layer between the troposphere and the stratosphere, at altitudes between 7,000 and 12,000 meters (23,000 to 39,000 feet) .
Oh, excellent the altitudes that 99% of aircraft fly at, unaffecting the ultra rich who fly private jets at 40,000k-50,000k+.
You can fly over the tropopause depending how high it is at the specific location (can be lower or higher than the numbers listed) but, by definition, it'll only be "common" to observe turbulence in the range 99% of planes actually fly. I wouldn't read too much into that. As some others pointed out the height difference probably more due tot he space being faster and unused since commercial flights stay to where is more efficient.
I wonder if this is like an immune system response by mother nature, it’s attacking the thing that’s warming it up i.e. air travel? Self correcting systems
jameshart|1 year ago
One thing that’s happened in the past couple of years along that air corridor is the squeezing of flight paths out of Ukrainian, Russian, Israeli, and Afghan airspace.
Planes taking more circuitous routes, giving them less options to avoid weather conditions, much of the flight over hot mountainous terrain… could be a contributing factor to increasing incidents of dangerous turbulence affecting flights, even if the conditions themselves haven’t become more common.
kelnos|1 year ago
(Also consider that the principal question the article tries to answer is not "are there more CAT incidents?" but simply "is there more CAT?")
I glanced at a few current (as of today) routes, e.g. CDG->SIN[0], which don't fly anywhere near the areas of heavy CAT noted by the heat maps. Hell, let's take a look at the flight mentioned, the LHR-SIN SQ321[1], where a passenger died in may (though, as the article notes, it was later determined not to be CAT): that one doesn't fly through any high-CAT areas (and in fact does fly through Russian airspace).
> giving them less options to avoid weather conditions
The entire characterization of CAT is that it is unavoidable because the cause often doesn't have all that much to do with weather conditions, and even when it does, you don't get (enough) advance warning.
[0] https://www.flightstats.com/v2/flight-tracker/SQ/335?year=20...
[1] https://www.flightstats.com/v2/flight-tracker/SQ/321?year=20...
gerdesj|1 year ago
OK but you'll need a citation for your assertion and that is only about reported CAT via media sources and not what the article is on about - CAT events worldwide.
The article invokes evidence across the entire planet and cites Prosser et al with 1979 vs 2020 graphics, evidence and discussion. It also concludes that jet streams are where CAT events are intensifying.
therobots927|1 year ago
Well the study in the link has a chart of some sort of duration weighted probability of CAT (which somehow ranges from 0 to 2.5 instead of 0 to 1?), which would correct for the total volume of flights because it’s a ratio. It’s more likely that the jet streams are getting more turbulent due to climate change.
w14|1 year ago
I don't know if there are other factors which might be masking a rise in incidence of CAT from accident stats?
_moof|1 year ago
cpncrunch|1 year ago
https://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm
ImaCake|1 year ago
What is demonstrably increasing is CAT, due to climate change. But considering how infrequent these incidents are we might not see a clear increase for several decades.
JoshGG|1 year ago
rdtsc|1 year ago
cassepipe|1 year ago
eggy|1 year ago
vanderZwan|1 year ago
> The report includes an important discussion of the risk to unrestrained occupants onboard aircraft, including flight attendants – who account for nearly 80% of those seriously injured in turbulence-related accidents. Key recommendations in the report are intended to help ensure better protections for flight attendants
... which makes me think of two more possibilities:
1 - I suspect any careless flight attendant involved in a turbulence-related accident would learn their lesson after the first time, and take better safety precautions. Perhaps that is a stabilizing factor on the number of accidents, since the number of flight attendants who need to learn that lesson the hard way is probably more a function of how many new flight attendants enter the field than it is a product of how much turbulence there is.
2 - Flight attendants under-report minor accidents so they don't get into trouble for not respecting safety rules
Of course, this is pure speculation (and assuming that the premise of there being more CAT incidents holds up), I'm sure the actual document goes into this kind of thing in more detail but I don't have the time to dig through 115 papers.
thiel|1 year ago
I was under the impression that, as the poles are MORE affected by global warming, the jet stream is becoming weaker? is that incorrect?
the_sleaze_|1 year ago
polar_low|1 year ago
The truth is there are many oscillations and teleconnections(themselves being impacted by global warming) which influences this temperature gradient on a local/seasonal basis. QBO, El Nino/La Nina and mountain torque events to name a few can move and shift heat at the tropopause in a short period of time and is why we see this wider variance at both ends of the spectrum.
photochemsyn|1 year ago
badcppdev|1 year ago
konschubert|1 year ago
The poles warm FASTER than the equator. Thus, the global temperature gradients are getting smaller.
And as a result, not only does the Jetstream weaken: as a result, weather patterns become more stable which leads to greater continuous periods of draught or flooding.
thisisauserid|1 year ago
Now I know that it's the perfect name for a space pirate ship.
card_zero|1 year ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_Air_Turbulence_(album)
oron|1 year ago
pc2slow4webpack|1 year ago
HeatrayEnjoyer|1 year ago
What does authenticating have to do with it? Is there doubt about data providence?
therobots927|1 year ago
This type of technology would be incredible in my opinion, and I’m also of the opinion that increased turbulence (assuming it is actually increasing) could be easily tied to climate change and the recent warming of the pacific and Atlantic oceans due to regulations on sulfur in cargo ship fuel (but that’s a tangent to this topic)
bparsons|1 year ago
animex|1 year ago
lxgr|1 year ago
Octabrain|1 year ago
ibejoeb|1 year ago
That said, experiencing light chop on a modern large airplane presents no danger to the airframe or properly secured passengers. You really should be strapped in, though, especially if you're on a small plane. Wake turbulence, for example, actually does present a significant risk to smaller aircraft.
sandworm101|1 year ago
bparsons|1 year ago
Other people will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the last time a large commercial airliner was lost to turbulence was 1966. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOAC_Flight_911
mrWiz|1 year ago
ThinkingGuy|1 year ago
https://askthepilot.com/questionanswers/turbulence/
MisterTea|1 year ago
1propionyl|1 year ago
This isn't to say either of those things really happen just it sometimes sure seems like it.
diogenescynic|1 year ago
erixM|1 year ago
oron|1 year ago
bozhark|1 year ago
Two top level. You suck
piombisallow|1 year ago
triceratops|1 year ago
Whether it's responsible for more CAT - who knows?
bromuro|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
cassepipe|1 year ago
In a word, yes. Recent studies have shown a significant increase in the frequency and intensity of CAT conditions over the past few decades. This increase is linked to several factors, most notably climate change."
We've had this invisible hand of the market to regulate ourselves. Now we have the invisible hand of the planet. It won't be a fun ride either.
osipov|1 year ago
vessenes|1 year ago
Also worth noting that to a passenger, CAT is the worst feeling you’ll have on most flights — the “oh shit we’re not flying anymore” vibe is real bad, and usually when you hit proper air again, the sudden jerk feels bad as well.
As someone with like 8 flight hours to my name, I’ll say to a learning pilot, stalling feels much worse than CAT would, it’s a different sort of not flying, it’s like “oh shit the plane forgot how to fly, what now”.
aaron695|1 year ago
[deleted]
londons_explore|1 year ago
Obviously the wings need to lock into place for landing, and many structural elements of the craft would need to be redesigned.
nashashmi|1 year ago
sandywaffles|1 year ago
Oh, excellent the altitudes that 99% of aircraft fly at, unaffecting the ultra rich who fly private jets at 40,000k-50,000k+.
hiatus|1 year ago
I didn't realize private jets fly so high. What's the reason for the difference in elevations?
zamadatix|1 year ago
FabHK|1 year ago
cinntaile|1 year ago
pc86|1 year ago
joohwan|1 year ago
nytesky|1 year ago
thfuran|1 year ago
lxgr|1 year ago
gosub100|1 year ago