Flying | “I only remember a couple of cases in the world where this has happened” – An experienced pilot evaluates a fatal accident

One one person died and several were injured in severe turbulence on a Singapore Airlines passenger flight. A 73-year-old man died likely to have a heart attack.

The head of the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom Jari Pöntinen according to the fact that a person dies in turbulence is extremely rare.

“I only remember a couple of cases in the world where this has happened,” says Pöntinen, who has been flying for 30 years.

Usually it has been that severe turbulence has struck completely unexpectedly in clear weather, so there has been no time to prepare for the situation and there has been no time to turn on the seat belt light. Then those without seat belts may fly uncontrollably onto the roof.

This is exactly what happened with Singapore Airlines. Those on board said that the sudden downward flow threw the people traveling without seat belts onto the roof. Some of the passengers hit their heads on the luggage compartments above the seats and even through them.

Pöntinen does not remember an incident during his own piloting career where a person was seriously injured. Small bumps, on the other hand, may occur if turbulence comes unexpectedly. According to the US National Transportation Safety Board, between 2009 and 2018, turbulence caused one in three accidents in airlines.

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“Even a good prediction is not 100% reliable.”

Aviation reporter Jyri Raivio says that he has experienced bad turbulence once on the way to Copenhagen.

“I was talking to a friend and suddenly the plane disappeared from under me. It felt really bad,” Raivio describes.

Raivio didn’t hurt himself, but he got scared again. Raivio says that it suddenly became clear to him why it is recommended to keep seat belts on the plane, even though the captain has turned off the seat belt light.

“It’s a good recommendation. It provides a very high level of security with very little effort.”

Prepare for turbulence in advance by studying weather forecasts and listening to announcements from other planes. If, for example, a thunderstorm front is known, efforts are made to avoid it.

“However, this is not an exact science. Even a good prediction is not 100% reliable,” says Pöntinen.

Pöntinen thinks that less than every tenth case of turbulence is unpredictable. Even fewer of them are dangerously powerful.

When unexpected turbulence appears, the passenger can do nothing but sit down as quickly as possible and fasten the seat belt.

The plane’s pilot tries to get out of the turbulence area by raising or lowering the plane’s height. Pöntinen thinks that the Singapore Airlines plane’s descent of a couple of kilometers is partly due to the fact that the captain tried to move the plane below the downdraft. He considers it unlikely that the plane would have fallen freely for a kilometer, as falls are usually hundreds of meters.

“This is now a guess, but most likely the captain has deliberately aimed lower. Two kilometers is an awfully big drop if the plane went down uncontrollably.”

An accident investigation will be conducted into the case, which will clarify whether it was a free fall or a combination of a free fall and a controlled fall.