In December of 2022, Flight UA1722 from Maui to San Francisco was reported by media to have plunged half of its altitude in a matter of seconds due to severe turbulence. Just last week, a Lufthansa flight from Austin, TX to Germany reportedly fell thousands of feet, sending seven people to the hospital for injuries after an emergency landing.
Is this just sensationalized reporting by the media, or do commercial jets actually plummet from the sky and recover just before crashing? Why and how does this happen?
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When planes encounter turbulence they can hit pockets of air that are significantly colder and thus more dense. They can also be hit by extreme gusts of wind that can push it in any direction. Both of these cause the speed of air relative to the plane do drop. The pilots will compenstate by putting the plane into a dive to maintain the airflow over the wings and attempt to move away from the disturbed air. This sudden change causes the sensation that the plane is dropping.
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