Experiencing air vacuum in flight????

Question

Anyone ever during a flight experiencing a sudden drop in altitude?
What was that?
Was told it was vacuum in atmosphere that the plane passed through?
Is that true?
Is there any instrument that can detect that or avoid that vacuum space during flight?
Dropping 10-20 meters during flight is NOT a pleasant experience..... :(

Answer 1

Clear Air Turbulence....CAT.....can really knock your socks off! or spill your drink. Its a real challenge. There's really no way to predict it. Pilots radio in when they encounter it so others know, thats why the pilot will put the seat belt sign on sometimes when the flight is smooth as silk. Its a good idea to keep yous seat belt on at all times, just loosely

Answer 2

No, they can't avoid "air pockets" ... I agree, they are not pleasant. They seem to only occur in storms though. Here's some good news: You may not like it, but it won't ground a modern jet aircraft. I've been through a hurricane in one in the 80s where the wings were bending so far up and down from the turbulence that I couldn't always see the wingtips out the windows. The overhead storage compartments came open, TVs fell from the ceiling, trim panels all over came loose. We all thought we were done for. The plane however lost no engines, controls, etc... and made a clean landing.

God bless the engineers!

Answer 3

I once was on a british airways flight that had some major, and I mean major turbulence from chicago to london, the storm seemed below us but we dropped a few times, the pilot assured us we were safe, and we kept on going and landed safely in london, but its scary.