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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>Is this just sensationalized reporting by the media
You can always count on the media to sensationalize things
>do commercial jets actually plummet from the sky and recover just before crashing?
Incredibly rarely, and don’t confuse simply “hitting turbulence” or dropping a couple thousand feet with “recover just before crashing”. For the vast majority of the flight planes have a lot of distance between themselves and the ground.
>Why and how does this happen?
The speed of the air travelling over the wings of the plane is *incredibly* important as that gives lift to the plane to keep it in the air. Sufficiently strong or turbulent winds can disrupt this airflow causing the wings to not generate enough lift and causing the plane to lose altitude.
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