Eli5: why isn’t a plane experiencing turbulence considered dangerous?
In: Engineering
The same reason why a car on a bumpy road isn’t considered dangerous. It’s built to withstand that environment.
With the amount wings can flex before failing, planes could almost flap them like a bird.
When you’re 25,000 feet up in the air, plus or minus a few tens of feet is nothing. That’s all turbulence is: the plane runs into a wind sheer that suddenly increases or decreases lift, or it runs into an updraft or downdraft. And then the plane adjusts or leaves the problem area, and that’s it.
When the plane is only 100-300 feet up because it’s coming in to land, yeah that sudden loss of lift or downdraft can be *extremely* dangerous. However, pilots and air traffic controllers are trained to recognize weather conditions that cause turbulence near the ground and to avoid it. It’s not something to worry about because pilots make sure it doesn’t happen.
Edit: structurally, the wings are designed and tested to handle a load that is like 5x greater than the maximum performance expected from the plane, and then the pilots fly the plane at like, a fifth of that maximum performance. No turbulence is strong enough to shake a plane apart. If the weather ever got that bad, they’d see it well ahead of time and fly around it. Avoiding turbulence is 90% about keeping the flight pleasant for the passengers and 10% not putting a teeny tiny extra bit of wear and tear on the parts.
EDIT2: [Here is a video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–LTYRTKV_A) showing a wing load test for an Airbus A350. Look how much those wings are designed to flex before breaking. Turbulence isn’t going to do anything.
Severe turbulence can be dangerous for passengers. People have gotten hurt when flying through extreme weather conditions because they aren’t buckled in and get thrown around. Generally though, pilots and ATC are aware of these areas and avoid them.
I forgot what show I saw this on, but they compared an airplane experiencing turbulence to being stuck in jello. When the jello shakes, you’d feel it shake, but you don’t really go anywhere.
Because its like being suspended in Jello. put a grape in some Jello. shake the Jello. Grape moves with the Jello.
same thing as an air plane in the air. Air moves, plane moves. Turbulence. ~~Also there have been 0 plane crashes due to turbulence.~~ only one plane has been lost due to air plane turbulence ever.
It sometimes can be, because turbulence is essentially a bunch of tiny wind shear events. However, up at altitude and cruise speed, those tiny windshears don’t push the aircraft too far around the flight envelope, and so the aircraft isn’t threatened.
Even turbulence on landing is acceptable if the approach remains stabilized. If the plane’s systems call out “Windshear ahead”, then a normal go-around or a windshear escape maneuver is flown at the pilot flying’s discretion, however if the plane’s systems call out “Windshear!” or other signs of actively being in a windshear are noted (like a sudden 15kt variation in indicated airspeed either way), a windshear escape maneuver must be flown. On approach, the risk of a windshear is its unpredictability – it might trigger a sudden loss of indicated airspeed, with it a loss of airflow over the wings, and a sudden onset of a stall at an altitude too low to recover from it, and if that happens, you are having a bad day and you will not go to space today.
Please someone correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t believe turbulence (en route) has ever resulted in a crash in the history of flight. Turbulence can cause injuries to people not belted in but the plane itself is never damaged if it’s not near ground. Again please correct me.
Not plane falling apart and crashing dangerous but turbulence can absolutely be dangerous as people can get injured walking or hit by various items.
Air is a fluid so just imagine you can see waves of air. Those waves are turbulence. The aeroplane just goes over a bigger wave than usual, like a car goes over a speed bump or a ship goes over a wave. It’s just that air isn’t as forceful as water so the air waves don’t move the plane as much as a huge wave moves a ship.
Aeroplanes are designed to withstand more turbulence than is naturally possible. You might get thrown about a bit inside the plane going over a really big wave if you’re not wearing your belt but the plane itself will be fine.
Because they perform extensive testing of the airframe that’s way beyond anything a little turbulence will cause.
Here’s an [airbus test](https://youtu.be/–LTYRTKV_A?si=juxKUdAU7-YNt-99)
Here’s a [boeing test](https://youtu.be/m5GD3E2onlk?si=srYQy6Ueo3cqSQjO)
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