How much TURBULENCE can commercial airplanes handle?

Question

I freak out when I'm on a plane that hits turbulence. How much turbulance can planes handle?

Answer 1

A lot. Don't worry. No commercial aircraft ever broke up because of turbulence although injuries have occured to passengers that weren't wearing seat belts.

Answer 2

There have been four airliners break up in flight due to turbulence since the 40s:

In February 1963, a Northwest Airlines Boeing 720 broke up in flight over the Everglades in Florida. The airplane flew into a thunderstorm.

In March 1966, a BOAC Boeing 707 broke up in flight after flying into severe turbulence near Mt. Fuji in Japan. The pilot was trying to give the passengers a better view of the mountain.

In August 1966, a Braniff BAC1-11 flew into a thunderstorm near Falls City, NE, and broke up in flight.

And lastly, in October 1981 an NLM Cityhopper Fokker F28 took off and flew into a thunderstorm not far from Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and it too broke up in flight.

Needless to say, these were all fatal accidents for everyone on board.

One important thing to note: These were all early-generation airliners, and with the exception of the last one, they all happened more than 40 years ago. There have been significant improvements in weather forecasting and observation technology since the mid-1960s, so it's extremely unlikely you'll fly into a severe thunderstorm. Both the air traffic controllers and the pilots have weather radar at their disposal, and as you may have noticed, 3 of the 4 listed were a result of flying into thunderstorms.

The other one, the one near Mt. Fuji, was due to a combination of extremely strong mountain waves (a type of turbulence common to mountain areas) and a flight crew that should have known better than to get too close to Mt. Fuji given the conditions.

These incidents would probably have been unsurvivable for any airplane.

Having said all that, airliners can take a tremendous amount of turbulence. I've seen several airliners that have been absolutely pounded by hail in flight; it looked like someone took a sledgehammer to the leading edges and the windshield, but yet the crew managed to land the airplane.

The most important thing you can do as a passenger is to keep your seat belt fastened the whole time you're in your seat. There have been a few instances of passengers and flight attendants being injured or killed from being thrown around the cabin in severe turbulence. The airplane structure can take it, though.

Answer 3

not too sure about that, but i'm sure they can handle more g than we humans can remain awake under.

curiously i did find this passage while searching for a more specific answer...



Two of the aircraft exceeded their software limits on 9/11.


The Boeing 757 and 767 are equipped with fully autonomous flight capability, they are the only two Boeing commuter aircraft capable of fully autonomous flight. They can be programmed to take off, fly to a destination and land, completely without a pilot at the controls.

They are intelligent planes, and have software limits pre set so that pilot error cannot cause passenger injury. Though they are physically capable of high g maneuvers, the software in their flight control systems prevents high g maneuvers from being performed via the cockpit controls. They are limited to approximately 1.5 g's, I repeat, one and one half g's. This is so that a pilot mistake cannot end up breaking grandma's neck.

No matter what the pilot wants, he cannot override this feature.

The plane that hit the Pentagon approached or reached its actual physical limits, military personnel have calculated that the Pentagon plane pulled between five and seven g's in its final turn.

The same is true for the second aircraft to impact the WTC.

There is only one way this can happen.

As well as fully autonomous flight capability, the 767 and 757 are the ONLY COMMUTER PLANES MADE BY BOEING THAT CAN BE FLOWN VIA REMOTE CONTROL. It is a feature that is standard to all of them, all 757's and 767's can do it. The purpose for this is if there is a problem with the pilots, Norad can fly the planes to safe destinations via remote. Only in this flight mode can those craft exceed their software limits and perform to their actual physical limits because a pre existing emergency situation is assumed if this mode of flight is used.

Terrorists in fact did not fly those planes, it is totally and completely impossible for those planes to have been flown in such a manner from the cockpit. Those are commuter aircraft, not F-16's and their software knows it.

Another piece of critical evidence: the voice recorders came up blank.

The flight recorders that were recovered had tape that was undamaged inside, but it was blank. There is only one way this can happen on a 757 or 767. When the aircraft are commandeered via remote control, the microphones that go to the cockpit voice recorder are re routed to the people doing the remote controlling, so that the recording of what happened in the cockpit gets made in a presumably safer place. But due to a glitch in the system on a 757/767, rather than shutting off when the mic is redirected the voice recorder keeps running. The voice recorders use what is called a continuous loop tape, which automatically re passes itself past the erase and record heads once every half hour, so after a half hour of running with the microphones redirected, the tape will be blank. Just like the recovered tapes were. Yet more proof that no pilot flew those planes in the last half hour.

Eight of the hijackers who were on those planes called up complaining that they were still alive. I'd bet you never heard about our foreign minister flying to Morocco and issuing an official apology to the accused, did you? No, terrorists did not fly those planes, plastic knives and box cutters were in fact too ridiculous to be true. Any of the remaining accused have certainly been sought out and killed by now.

Answer 4

Although I hate flying myself, planes are built to take a lot of turbulance. Weather watchers, for example, fly them through hurricanes to determine wind speed/catagory of the stome. Turbulance is the least thing you need to worry about when flying.

Answer 5

Depends on the severity and duration of the turbulence. Generally speaking, the airframe can take a more severe beating than you can physically. During airframe evaluation tests, it is literally shaken until catastrophic failure of a major area is evident. Your teeth would have come loose long before that.

Answer 6

To be certified in the Normal class, airplanes must demonstrate a tolerance for about 4 gravities vertical acceleration. That's a whale of a big bump.

Answer 7

alot and it depends on the type of plane but i like turbulance it is fun to be in unless you fall out of the sky and die. hahaha

Answer 8

alot. The 777 is designed to fall in a flat spin at 23g's of gravity before the wings snap off.

Answer 9

Modern aircraft are tough these days

turbulance is no sweat, no matter how rough it gets

they cannot tolerate even a small explosion, that is very bad

Answer 10

They can handle more than you can imagine. Airplanes are over built so you are very safe.