Well I do follow the seat belt sign 100% of the time. Foolish me assumes that if it is off it must be approved by the pilot and thus safe to do so (hopefully the pilot knows what he/she is doing
). And I fly just a little more than the average person. There are people who DON'T follow the seat belt signs? I thought turning off aeroplane mode/using data mid-flight is the extent of the foolishness accomplished by passengers (based on my observations).
This is the thing about seatbelt signs. Some crew like to think of it as law. But really, we can’t deny a person their dignity when needing the bathroom. So if they need to use the bathroom, then they do so at their own risk.
The radar is pretty good and can see the weather. Obviously it can’t see the clear air turbulence (no radar can at the moment).
In the aftermath, or beforehand?
I’ll say it. There’s not much excuse for running into something, especially given that the weather was quite benign compared to what the region can offer.
Done many sims? There is a lot of effort put into management.
G loading. If it hits you at 2g then it’s not a 7kg bag any more. Or at least its effect isn’t.
Reading a radar is a bit of an art, and I wonder how pervasive the ability to read it really is these days. They all have automatic modes, and they’re probably in them for 99% of the time. I found it rare to see any of the younger pilots going back to the manual modes, and one of the SCCs even commented to me that my own use was non standard. He quietened when he realised what I could discern.
No. Getting a track deviation is easy. I don’t know whether Myanmar has caught up with data links yet, but with them it’s as hard as typing “20 R”. They were over land, so almost certainly VHF comms, which is just as easy. There is no inertia from the pilot side…it’s what you do. If the weather looks to be bad enough, you’ll avoid it without a clearance. There are laid down procedures for this.
Perhaps you need to familiarise yourself with this incident. And Captain Kevin Sullivan.
Which comes back to the way a company uses the signs. Firstly letting cabin crew do their normal jobs at all, with the signs on, simply teaches everyone that they aren’t really to be obeyed. And secondly, having them on, unnecessarily, and for long periods, magnifies the toilet issue whilst also reducing the importance of the signs for most people. I’ve been on airlines that literally leave them on for the entire flight. Stupid.
Well, taxes stop clouds from forming this removing the issue of Clear Air turbulence. Makes sense?
Wait for the next generation who think Ai will solve everything - "Siri, what's the weather going to be like ahead?"
Only applies to inbound/outbound flights from Doha and Dubai and other middle eastern nations posh enough to do this (however most likely will lead to miscalculation and backfire)Well, taxes stop clouds from forming this removing the issue of Clear Air turbulence. Makes sense?
Avoiding consequences of a death onboard.
i heard someone on the radio who had a family member (from Adelaide) onboard say the seatbelt came on then instantly the turbulence struck.
Yep- been on lots of these flights, very common in the US. Always wondered whether it’s more than just stupidity, some insurance thing maybe- if you ALWAYS keep the sign on and something happens, no one can sue you for it? Not sure.
I believe my comment would apply beforehand, i.e. could another airline have easily (or reasonably) avoided this and it was patently obvious (i.e. any competent pilot would be trained to do so).
No, so I'll admit it was mainly because of reading your accounts in "Ask the Pilot" of sims, which seem to be a lot of problem scenarios thrown up at you and then dealing with those problems as they have arisen.
That's true. A heavier bag would not help in that regard (or at best the mass would have little change on the overall consequences).
That's good to know. So at least we come back one of the foundational arguments as to whether the pilots should have been flying away from the turbulent area (viz. they had a viable choice to do so).
Ha. Curious thing to continue believing, if one is regularly at 40,000ft in a window seat.
The most dangerous part of a 'flight' is the trip to and from the airport.
What?
My suspicion would be that they actually hit a very small cell, nothing like the huge ones showing on the image I posted above. If you have the radar on too long a range, they can simply become a few pixels, and so easily missed.
You can't always. Whilst it's nice to stay 50 miles away, the reality is that many times you'll need to transit areas of storms. And to do that you need to find the weakest parts, preferably upwind.
You're not talking about a great deal of g overall. Perhaps .5 negative. So half your weight on the strap. Might be uncomfortable, but I doubt that it would do any harm.
