“The Singapore Airlines crash is an unfortunate case.” It’s very clear General Carlo Landi now retired, who was Commander of the Air Force Experimental Flight Center and who now carries out an “aeronautical volunteering” program called Progetto Volare Sicuri, onaccident involving a Boeing 777 who had left London for Singapore.
The plane, after about 11 hours of flight, while flying over the Andaman Sea, in Burma, he encountered “sudden and extreme” turbulence which caused him to lose almost 2,000 meters of altitude in 5 minutes. The commander then made an emergency landing in Bangkok where 20 people are hospitalized in intensive care. One passenger died, apparently from a heart attack.
We had them explain what happened on the Singapore Airlines flight and why we shouldn’t stop flying (just do it better).
Carlo Landi, AM general retired since 2011 (Photo: www.carlolandi.it)
What is turbulence?
«These are movements of air masses due among other things to the temperatures of the air and the sea which can warm the atmosphere above it. It’s all a game of energy: the hotter the atmosphere, the more energy there is and this can expand in a linear or swirling manner. Wind is thought to flow in only one direction, but it’s just like water. Think about the effects of when a linear movement like that of a wave encounters an obstacle, such as a rock, and breaks. The wave breaks and becomes disjointed. The same happens in the air.”
Where do these phenomena occur most often?
«They are especially encountered when flying over the sea. Speaking of altitude, airplanes fly at 30,000 feet and it is precisely at those altitudes that atmospheric phenomena such as Clear Air Turbulence (CAT) occur.”
What does “clear air” mean?
“It means that they are cloudless turbulences and for this reason they are particularly dangerous because they are not visible, so if they have not been reported by another pilot, they take the crew by surprise.”
The plane was said to be in a jet stream. What it means?
«The planes that fly on those routes fly at 10-11 thousand meters above sea level, we are at the limit of the troposphere, the lowest part of the atmosphere, the one where we live. Here, there are the jet streams which are air currents, even 100 km thick, and which travel between 150 and 400 km/h. It is normal for planes to fly within these currents because they save time and fuel.”
