> Passengers reported they were told one of the flight attendants had suffered a broken rib, another person a fractured leg. The trolleys had been lifted and impacted the cabin ceiling and fell to the floor several times, passengers not wearing their seat belts also hit the cabin ceiling. The crew announced they had lost more than 1000 feet of altitude, they hadn't seen such severe turbulence ever before.
My mom worked on airplanes for 35 years—-She always told us this.
She was once flung to the ceiling (and then back to the floor) while trying to get back to her seat.
Aloha · 5h ago
This is so important I put mine on, and avoid taking it off until I'm on the ground again.
noir_lord · 4h ago
I do, I tighten it for take off/landing and loosen it a little once we are at cruise - it's not even noticeable but it's better than impacting the ceiling.
Looks like they flew right over convective while everyone else flew around it. Attempt to save fuel? Gotta justify Delta tickets being double everyone else’s.
EverydayBalloon · 4h ago
"Turbulence has long been a problem for air travelers, but experts say the issue is getting worse in an era of climate crisis which produces more extreme atmospheric conditions."
lol
the_third_wave · 4h ago
...and as if on queue the narrative around climate "crisis" is woven into an article about a plane experiencing turbulence: experts say the issue is getting worse in an era of climate crisis. Do publications like the Guardian have narrative quotas they need to achieve?
That paper has nothing to do with the incident in question. You're referencing a BBC article that references a paper stating that Clear Air Turbulence is getting worse [1]
> Turbulence is unpleasant to fly through in an aircraft. Strong turbulence can even injure air passengers and flight attendants. An invisible form called clear-air turbulence
But in the incident in question, the plane flew directly through a convective storm.
More energy = more turbulence? Amazing that it's a point of contention.
alexk307 · 1h ago
But that's not what the paper says. It says Clear Air Turbulence (CAT) has gotten worse, not all types of turbulence. In this case, the flight flew through a convective storm.
Even so, the paper says there's been a 0.2-0.3% change in CAT:
> The largest increases in both absolute and relative MOG CAT were found over the North Atlantic and continental United States, with statistically significant absolute increases of 0.3% (26 hr) and 0.22% (19 hr), respectively, over the total reanalysis period.
gosub100 · 4h ago
And if you found research contradicting that narrative, it would risk your career and/or would not be published. There is only one way to think, not open discourse.
For instance, wildfires. It's definitely climate change because something bad happened. Not classical phenomena about wind currents drying out vegetation. Or increased human development into wild areas, or a century of PUTTING OUT smaller fires, or environmental regulations against harvesting lumber. No, the only way to think is the way that leads to more regulations, taxes and grants and government waste, criminal charges for the unlucky SOB who starts the fire, higher prices (in energy, cars, buildings, and insurance), and more human suffering that they can sell you their next solution for. For this reason, I don't believe a single thing they say anymore.
dagmx · 3h ago
The irony that you are claiming everybody else will not listen to conflicting evidence while not providing any of your own and saying that you won’t believe anything unless it passes your own world view.
gosub100 · 1h ago
The irony is that if the CA forest were logged and the timber used to build homes, the price of housing would be lower, there would be fewer homeless people, more people with jobs, and few or no devastating fires (less CO2, you know, the big bad "greenhouse gas") . But admitting that would be heretical to the pseudo-religion that is leftism. The party profits when suffering increases.
dagmx · 58m ago
I legitimately cannot tell if this is a parody comment or not.
It shows a shocking lack of familiarity with the effects of deforestation, carbon capture, logging rules for sustainability, land ownership for building the houses or even what the bottlenecks for housing currently are.
All to blame the intellectually bereft bogeyman of “leftism” when forests exist in many right wing states, and the right wing currently runs the government and yet even they don’t do what you’re suggesting…
hydrogen7800 · 3h ago
>It's definitely climate change because something bad happened. Not classical phenomena about wind currents drying out vegetation.
>[T]he extent to which this trend is due to weather pattern changes dominated by natural variability versus anthropogenic warming has been unclear... Our results show that for the period 1979 to 2020, variation in the atmospheric circulation explains, on average, only 32% of the observed VPD [vapor pressure deficit] trend of 0.48 ± 0.25 hPa/decade (95% CI) over the WUS during the warm season (May to September). The remaining 68% of the upward VPD trend is likely due to anthropogenic warming.[0]
Could be many things. Did they consider whether the incidence of seat belt wearing has decreased? It doesn't seem that far-fetched that compliance with the directive to fasten seat belts has decreased along with respect for authority.
interestica · 2h ago
Interesting! As a continued hypothetical, it's interesting that the "No Smoking" permanently-lit sign is next to the seatbelt one. It's a weird contradiction: by being an electronic illuminated sign in the most prominent area (like a passenger HUD - reserved for critical info) it is given an elevated importance that doesn't really align with user expectation (is it really on the same level as the 'alert' implementation of the seatbelt sign?). So, there may be some kind of "cries wolf" subtle psychological effect in play: the cigarette signage is so obviously unnecessary in place and prominence that maybe the seatbelt signage takes on some of that cognitive placement (and implied importance) in mind. I think it kind of plays into that "respect for authority" you noted -- not unlike the possibility that programs like DARE that tried to group drugs like marijuana with heroin may have caused an increase in harder drug use when people realized that they were misled by that initial 'noble lie'. (See also mask use during the pandemic)
graemep · 2h ago
I wonder why they have it at all. Every flight I have been on for a very long time is completely no smoking.
I think it may have that effect on the seatbelt sign, but is it greater or less than when the no smoking sign was actually worth checking?
curt15 · 40m ago
Respect for authority has decreased?
mhb · 18m ago
yes
gosub100 · 4h ago
Further, if you say the same thing every time, it's not "news". "$semi-intersting-story...and oh, the climates changing". It's a non-sequitur
https://avherald.com/h?article=52b0a50c&opt=0
She was once flung to the ceiling (and then back to the floor) while trying to get back to her seat.
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL56/history/202507...
Track log https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL56/history/202507...
Looks like something happened around 19:20
lol
Climate change causing turbulence increase is well acknowledged https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240524-severe-turbulenc...
> Turbulence is unpleasant to fly through in an aircraft. Strong turbulence can even injure air passengers and flight attendants. An invisible form called clear-air turbulence
But in the incident in question, the plane flew directly through a convective storm.
[1] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL10...
I would have thought the main reason the issue is more common is simply there are far more flights.
Even so, the paper says there's been a 0.2-0.3% change in CAT:
> The largest increases in both absolute and relative MOG CAT were found over the North Atlantic and continental United States, with statistically significant absolute increases of 0.3% (26 hr) and 0.22% (19 hr), respectively, over the total reanalysis period.
For instance, wildfires. It's definitely climate change because something bad happened. Not classical phenomena about wind currents drying out vegetation. Or increased human development into wild areas, or a century of PUTTING OUT smaller fires, or environmental regulations against harvesting lumber. No, the only way to think is the way that leads to more regulations, taxes and grants and government waste, criminal charges for the unlucky SOB who starts the fire, higher prices (in energy, cars, buildings, and insurance), and more human suffering that they can sell you their next solution for. For this reason, I don't believe a single thing they say anymore.
It shows a shocking lack of familiarity with the effects of deforestation, carbon capture, logging rules for sustainability, land ownership for building the houses or even what the bottlenecks for housing currently are.
All to blame the intellectually bereft bogeyman of “leftism” when forests exist in many right wing states, and the right wing currently runs the government and yet even they don’t do what you’re suggesting…
>[T]he extent to which this trend is due to weather pattern changes dominated by natural variability versus anthropogenic warming has been unclear... Our results show that for the period 1979 to 2020, variation in the atmospheric circulation explains, on average, only 32% of the observed VPD [vapor pressure deficit] trend of 0.48 ± 0.25 hPa/decade (95% CI) over the WUS during the warm season (May to September). The remaining 68% of the upward VPD trend is likely due to anthropogenic warming.[0]
[0]https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2111875118#executive-s...
I think it may have that effect on the seatbelt sign, but is it greater or less than when the no smoking sign was actually worth checking?