Editorial: Air turbulence one big reason to follow crew members’ instructions

EDITORIAL

Aircraft are hit with turbulence every day, but incidents severe enough to injure passengers and crew also seem to be on the rise.

This week, an accident aboard a Turkish Airlines jet was reported in which a flight attendant who was just two months into the job was flung to the ceiling before falling hard on the floor, leaving them suffering from a broken backbone. This report followed injuries aboard a Qatar Airways plane over Turkey on Monday and last week’s horrific incident in which a Singapore Airlines jet hit turbulence, one of the worst instances of such incidents in airline history.

A 73-year-old British man died of a suspected heart attack and dozens were treated for injuries when the aircraft hit clear-air turbulence on a flight from London to Singapore.

And for members of the cabin crew, their workplace can be particularly dangerous. While passengers can largely remain seated and belted in, crew don’t when they’re working, making them especially vulnerable to that dreaded clear-air turbulence.

Turbulence is the leading cause of non-fatal injuries aboard aircraft, and there are signs they are becoming more common and severe as global warming affects weather patterns and the earth’s atmosphere.

Paul Williams, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Reading in England, said there was strong evidence turbulence is increasing because of climate change.

Turbulence is essentially unstable air that moves in a non-predictable fashion, and the most dangerous type is clear-air turbulence, which often occurs with no visible indicators in the sky ahead to warn pilots.

Clear-air turbulence happens most often in or near the high-altitude jet streams where passenger aircraft cruise. Wind shear, when two huge air masses close to each other move at different speeds, is responsible. If the difference in speed is big enough, the atmosphere cannot handle the strain, and it breaks into turbulent patterns.

Williams’ research team recently discovered severe clear-air turbulence in the North Atlantic has increased by 55 per cent since 1979. Latest projections signal severe turbulence in the jet streams could double or triple in the coming decades if global conditions continue as expected.

“Our study represents the best evidence yet that clear-air turbulence has increased over the past four decades, consistent with the expected effects of climate change.”

Other factors could also be at play, such as the overall rise in air traffic increasing turbulence encounters as the number of flight tracks, including those in areas of more turbulence, goes up.

The number of passengers flying now exceeds pre-pandemic levels and will reach 4.7 billion a year. That’s little comfort to those few hundred who’ve been hurt or left terrified as a result of turbulence in the air, but the odds of falling victim to it are low. Furthermore, aircraft are designed to withstand incredible stresses, with cases of air-frame damage as a result of turbulence extremely rare.

Work is under way to better understand the problem and devise technology that will help aircraft avoid clear-air turbulence.

But until the technology comes to the rescue, there is an even simpler way of minimising the risk of injury if you’re unlucky enough to experience severe turbulence. When seated, wear your seatbelt. It’s the quickest fix of all.