How does air turbulence work? Aviation expert explains issues faced by Flight SQ321 | ITV News

so we set it to 36,000 feet, that's the altitude they were flying at. We have a lot of cumulus clouds outside the window. They would have been seeing this kind of view. We know there was dramatic

turbulence

. Do we know what caused it? At this type of altitude, there are two things that could cause

turbulence

: the first is a cumulus cloud that most people would consider to be a cloud that would look a lot like that. The other one is something we call clear air turbulence which is caused by the Jet Stam very high velocity uh high altitude air flow up to about 250 mph and because near that there is much slower flowing air uh that there is a lot of turbulence between the air that moves fast and air that moves slowly, would you know where? the jet stream is and where is that clear turbulence.

There was something on one of these monitors that would tell you that in front of me I have the main

flight

screen and what we would be using to avoid turbulence, which is the navigation screen here. We can set the airborne weather radar to that and it would show colored patches where there might be more turbulence, but that would be the storm clouds rather than the clear air turbulence that would just show the storm. Clear air turbulence can only be avoided by forecasting and the other thing is that pilots who have experienced turbulence in a region will report it and that can be reported to other pilots flying the same route or in the same area as them. pilots feel. the dramatic rise and fall that we've seen on the chart, what are you doing to try to script that storm?

So the first thing they'll do is turn off the autopilot. In fact, it is likely that the autopilot has automatically disengaged. and if you see that that is the sound that is heard at that point, all they can do is minimize the turbulence disturbance, the plane rose quickly and then fell very quickly and then rose rapidly again and fell about half a mile in Before long, um, and the passengers were in their seats and buckled up, they would have felt pushed up in their seat belt, but anyone who wasn't buckled would almost certainly have abandoned the seat and any objects that weren't was tied up, there would be, uh, there would be. they rose off the plane and then there was a reversal where the plane started going up and then whoever was in the air would have come down and that would have been faster than if they were just falling because, uh, because the plane was rising beneath them and then they fell towards the plane that would have hit the ground with great force.

Is there a risk of an accident at that moment or is it under control? There's no significant structural risk, so a lot of people worry, uh, when they look at the plane and see the wings flexing, but if you see what they do when testing the plane, where they bend the wings 90°, it's not close to the structural limits. or should not approach the structural limits. of the aircraft, the problems usually come from the interior with damage to the interior, with objects moving and people being thrown. Is there something about the area of ​​Southeast Asia you were flying in that makes it more prone to this level of turbulence?

Storms are driven by the energy in water vapor, of course, in warmer areas not only is there additional heat, but that means there's more water in the atmosphere, more water vapor in the atmosphere, so storms tend to be bigger, what would you say to nervous people? Having seen this on the

news

, they are now increasingly nervous. I would say the reason it's in the

news

is because of how rare it is. There are about 4 billion people who fly every year today, and I really can't remember when the last time was. when this kind of thing happened