Keep your seatbelt fastened

smurfjed

[font=Arial, 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, sans-serif]DUBAI: The UAE s Etihad Airways says several passengers were injured when one of its flights encountered sudden turbulence as it prepared to land in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.
Etihad Airways said flight EY474 from its hub in Abu Dhabi was hit by severe and unexpected turbulence about 45 minutes before landing at Soekarno Hatta International Airport.
It says the plane landed safely but 31 passengers were injured, including nine who were taken to hospital for treatment.
The airline did not provide details on the severity of the injuries.
It says the turbulence was severe enough that it damaged cabin storage bins.[/font]
[font=Arial, 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, sans-serif][/font]

Its worth remembering that the seatbelt isnt just there for takeoff and landing.

gctest50

handy if the top falls of the plane as it does

DrumSteve

Having experienced extreme turbulence, I do not envy those people going through that.

smurfjed

Having experienced extreme turbulence

Whats extreme turbulence like?

Larbre34

I flew from Sydney to Shanghai on a Qantas A380 in March, over the notorious Banda Sea and Papua, we were warned well in advance and the cabin was buttoned up tight. Even at that the aerobatics performed to avoid the thunder cells and disturbed air were comical, the big jet was barely straight and level for 2 hours and the flight tracker map looked like spaghetti junction. We still had some fairly big jolts and the lower deck baggage bins move quite disturbingly on a 380. Not fun. Hopefully no severe injuries on the Etihad.

Growler!!!

smurfjed wrote: »

Whats extreme turbulence?

The worst form of turbulance categorised as Light, Moderate, Severe and Extreme turbulence according to our OM-B.

galljga1

gctest50 wrote: »

handy if the top falls of the plane as it does

Holy crap. Sometimes a little extra knowledge is a bad thing, particularly when heading to the airport today. Thanks for that.

arubex

Anyone know why airliners still use 1940s-style lap-belts instead of multi-point inertia-reel belts such as in cars? Coaches all seem to be moving to the latter, with anchors on the seats themselves.

robinph

arubex wrote: »

Anyone know why airliners still use 1940s-style lap-belts instead of multi-point inertia-reel belts such as in cars? Coaches all seem to be moving to the latter, with anchors on the seats themselves.

Because passengers are idiots and it would take an extra half hour before take off to show and check that everyone was buckled in, same again before landing.

Irish Steve

arubex wrote: »

Anyone know why airliners still use 1940s-style lap-belts instead of multi-point inertia-reel belts such as in cars? Coaches all seem to be moving to the latter, with anchors on the seats themselves.

For starters. there would be a lot more issues maintenance wise with inertia reel belts, the whole seat design would be massively changed, and have to be a lot stronger, as the seat back folds forward at present, and if we're brutally honest, the number of accidents where a full inertia belt would be the difference between surviving or not are a statistically minute part of the overall accident statistics figures.

Most of the time, the seat belt is not there to provide "protection" in a major accident, it's there to prevent people being thrown around the cabin in turbulence, and the fact that people tend to take them off the instant the sign goes off doesn't help the situation of the sort of incident reported earlier when an aircraft encounters unexpected moderate or severe turbulence. Lap and diagonal inertia belts would be less helpful most of the time, as they'd be more restrictive when restriction is not needed.

Full belts as used for aerobatics and in military aircraft would be way over the top, and cause huge problems in terms of design and implementation, as well as the delays that would be inevitable as passengers struggle to adjust them.

Aerohead

Video here looks frightening

https://www.veooz.com/news/nKrKfE1.html

GBX

Aerohead wrote: »

Video here looks frightening

https://www.veooz.com/news/nKrKfE1.html

I'm a bad flyer. Any sort of rumble/turbulence and I am nearly climbing the walls. Puts the heeby jeebies up me. Id probably pass out if I experienced anything like that

Long Time Lurker

Aerohead wrote: »

Video here looks frightening

https://www.veooz.com/news/nKrKfE1.html

Maybe I'm a bit grumpy today but which bit in what video is frightening! All I can see are people with their hands in the air whaling nonsense.

I've been on a plane myself when people were popped outta their seats. Was 20 years ago now and it was over the Alps so no surprise there. People need to realise that you should always buckle up even when the seat belt light isn't on. Despite gutter press headlines about "Terror in the Sky" the reality is injuries caused by turbulence are usually something very trivial like a small movement of the aircraft and someone banging their head or rolling their ankle. It could and does happen on the bus

Seat belt on, keep it on unless you've gotta pee, seat belt back on. Simples.

Negative_G

I don't know what would be worse. Experiencing severe turbulence or having to listen to those passegers wailing and shouting Allahu Akbar.

Long Time Lurker

GBX wrote: »

I'm a bad flyer. Any sort of rumble/turbulence and I am nearly climbing the walls. Puts the heeby jeebies up me. Id probably pass out if I experienced anything like that

Its almost safe to bet your house that you will never see or feel turbulence as bad as what's being described regarding this flight. And the important bit to know is, as far as the aircraft and the pilots are concerned, it was nothing more than an inconvenience rather than any trouble for the aircraft. It might feel very uncomfortable but you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

GBX

Fair enough .. its a mind over matter thing for me.

Aerohead

Long Time Lurker wrote: »

Maybe I'm a bit grumpy today but which bit in what video is frightening! All I can see are people with their hands in the air whaling nonsense.

I've been on a plane myself when people were popped outta their seats. Was 20 years ago now and it was over the Alps so no surprise there. People need to realise that you should always buckle up even when the seat belt light isn't on. Despite gutter press headlines about "Terror in the Sky" the reality is injuries caused by turbulence are usually something very trivial like a small movement of the aircraft and someone banging their head or rolling their ankle. It could and does happen on the bus

Seat belt on, keep it on unless you've gotta pee, seat belt back on. Simples.

I think you will see that this is not a trivial matter, check the pictures

http://www.airlive.net/alert-31-etihad-airways-ey474-passengers-injured-following-turbulence-in-flight-that-landed-safely-in-jakarta/

Irish Steve

It wasn't trivial, in that there was some damage to the aircraft, but in terms of mess, I've seen aircraft arrive in to Dublin with more junk and debris on the floor as a result of nothing more than passenger activity, there was no turbulence or anything else during the flight. My brother flew over to Australia on a 380 flight a while back, and as they were disembarking at their intermediate stop, they passed through the front part of the aircraft, and his comment to me was "I wasn't aware that the front half of the aircraft had crashed on arrival, the state of the front cabin looked like it had been some impact".

The vast majority of flights are not affected at all by turbulence, some get a minor irritation level, and the very rare one does get affected to a more significant degree, but even then, it's rare for there to be any damage to the aircraft itself, which is reassuring.

smurfjed

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Almost 20 people were injured when a Hong Kong Airlines flight ran into severe turbulence causing the pilot to turn back as it flew from Bali to Hong Kong.[/font]

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Airbus A330-200 with 204 passengers and 12 crew on board returned to Bali, the Indonesian island, about two and a half hours into the flight. It landed safely at 4.34am local time on Saturday, 8.34pm GMT on Friday.[/font]
[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The plane encountered the turbulence above Kalimantan, Indonesia's part of Borneo, the general manager of Bali's Ngurah Rai airport said. A total of 17 people were injured. [/font]

Wanderer2010

I absolutely hate turbulence of any kind and when that seatbelt sign lights up, I feel a horrible dread at the pit of my stomach and instantly all these horrible images swim up in my mind such as crashing into the violent and stormy ocean and me drowning, breaking limbs, screaming, praying etc. I know that's completely illogical and I have read up extensively on how safe aircraft are during turbulence and the actual process and types of turbulence but when I'm actually at 30000 feet the logical part of my brain runs away and I find it difficult to rationalise.

I agree with other posters here that one positive to take from these recent flights is that the plane was 100% safe as long as you had your seatbelt on plus everyone arrived alive at their destination.

Locker10a

Irish Steve wrote: »

It wasn't trivial, in that there was some damage to the aircraft, but in terms of mess, I've seen aircraft arrive in to Dublin with more junk and debris on the floor as a result of nothing more than passenger activity, there was no turbulence or anything else during the flight. My brother flew over to Australia on a 380 flight a while back, and as they were disembarking at their intermediate stop, they passed through the front part of the aircraft, and his comment to me was "I wasn't aware that the front half of the aircraft had crashed on arrival, the state of the front cabin looked like it had been some impact".

The vast majority of flights are not affected at all by turbulence, some get a minor irritation level, and the very rare one does get affected to a more significant degree, but even then, it's rare for there to be any damage to the aircraft itself, which is reassuring.

It still shocks me how humans can be so disrespectful of aircraft and the mess some people leave behind ! Knickers, socks, banana skins are regularly left on board !
Yes this incident should give reassurance to people about how strong aircraft are in turbulence!

smurfjed

Knickers

Sounds like an interesting flight

Locker10a

smurfjed wrote: »

Knickers

Sounds like an interesting flight

I wish it was however it was just another thing to add to the list of disrespectful and disgusting things the general public do on planes! The knickers were spotted by a colleague doing a security search on a turn around, they were black lacy type knickers and had a visible white substance on them ......they were promptly thrown into the flight deck and landed on the centre console.....flight deck
While it gave us a laugh at the time it perplexes me to this day why anyone would think it appropriate to take off an undergarment (in an unclean state) and just casually put it into a seat back pocket where a magazine and safety card provided for the public are stowed !

keith16

Every now and again you see reports like this. Guess what; flying through the air is unpredictable.

Therefore, I always prepare to fly to spend as little time as possible without my seatbelt on. Easily doable on short haul flights.

I like planes.

gctest50

keith16 wrote: »

Every now and again you see reports like this. Guess what; flying through the air is unpredictable..............

No it's not, you will always always land*







*Terms and conditions may apply
you will land, but it may not necessarily be :

• planned
• in an airport
• in one piece