Airplane turbulence is rarely a pleasure for passengers. Although incidents are rare, one of them recently made headlines: the death of a passenger during turbulence between London and Singapore. Some plane journeys are also more prone to turbulence than others, we learn. The Conversation relayed by Slate.
Above the mountains
Turbulence is linked to the collision of several winds and the creation of swirls or swirls of disrupted airflow. They occur more often above mountain ranges, because the surface wind accelerates upward. Many are also found on the edges of jet streams, bands of strong winds that circle the planet at high altitudes. They are often used by pilots to go faster but the entry or exit can be hectic.
South America and China
In Europe, most of the turbulence was observed above the Alps in 2023 during routes such as Milan-Geneva, Marseille-Zurich or Nice-Basel. In the rest of the world, the Santiago-Santa Cruz (Chile-Bolivia), Almaty-Bishkek (Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan) and Lanzhou-Chengdu (China) routes were the most disrupted.
Read also : To “get off faster” a passenger tries to unlock the plane door… in mid-flight
Things could also get worse, according to a study published in June 2023 which noted an increase in clear air turbulence, the most difficult to predict, between 1979 and 2020. This increase reached 55% in certain places. Another 2017 study revealed that clear-air turbulence could increase fourfold by 2050, under certain climate change scenarios.
Airlines and pilots have maps to try to predict and anticipate possible problems during flights. But the tools for detecting turbulence are not yet ready. In the meantime, pilots use weather radars to define their flight plan and avoid certain areas, and communicate with controllers to be warned in real time of weather conditions.
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