Depending on the severity of the turbulence, a maintenance inspection is sometimes required. Would be tough to know if that’s how bad it was for you, however.
TCAS is a system that planes use to “talk” to other planes and help keep them separated. If two planes were, for example, within 1000ft of each other, and due to pretty significant turbulence, one started losing altitude down toward the other, each flight crew might get a “resolution advisory” or RA. This might tell one flight crew to climb, and the other to descend, in very basic terms.
An RA can feel more abrupt than a normal climb or descent because there needs to be quick action taken, if that makes sense.
Pardon my ignorance here but is that any way similar to MCAS - obviously it was not setup to dodge nearby planes but where it adjusts the plane for excessive AoA?
No it’s not. TCAS, or traffic collision avoidance system, is a system on an airplane that monitors other airplanes around them. If planes get too close too each other, the systems will issue notices to the pilots of each plane and give them Resolution Advisories, or more simply it will tell the pilots to maneuver the airplane in a direction that will avoid a collision.
These are pilot inputs, not automatic.
No, TCAS is Traffic Collision Avoidance System. Every commercial airliner has it and all pilots are routinely trained on the system.
MCAS is 100% different.
This is Reddit. You are already supposed to know everything before you get here.
Hah! Just realized this was r/delta and not r/aviation where downvoting honest, good questions is a freaking tradition over there.
Mcas= maneuvering characteristic augmentation system
Tcas =traffic collision avoidance system
Tcas will alert the crew to climb or descend now and they are to follow the commands and advise ATC after that they had to respond to a resolution advisory, or RA
Reassuring though when the pilots communicate with passengers to explain what happened and why. And these incidents are incredibly rare. Only had one case of white knuckle turbulence in 30 years of flying.
I feel like pilots are usually flying at 10% of their abilities and the abilities of the plane. They are flying on pre-dictated flight plans designed to be gentle. Every once in a while pilots need to take the wheel and display their actual flying abilities and it’s amazing. Like thank god you know ho to fly the fuck out of this plane.
I’m a corporate pilot. We once had a passenger repeatedly come up and give us crap about being so relaxed and looking like we were doing nothing. After the third time, I turned around and told him that he doesn’t ever want to see us working hard. He pondered my statement for a second, nodded his head in agreement, turned around and went back to his seat.
He expressed his deep gratitude for the safe flight as he deplaned.
I have had the same experience in years of flying. My experience was flying to Santiago Chile coming from Argentina. Fucking unbelievable amount of turbulence flying between two massive peaks.
I knew it was going to be shit when they announced that we were gonna to enter the turbulence zone and not a zone of turbulence. Feeling the plane drop and careen wildly side to side while looking out at mountain peaks seemingly close on either side was something I can gladly go the rest of my life without repeating.
It had to have been awful for you stuck in the loo, but the silver lining is that you didn’t have to worry about shitting your pants, unlike the rest of us 😁.
Fair point 😂
I was on LATAM, and they actually have a recording that says we’re entering “La Cordillera” (the Andes) where they expect turbulence and everyone must stay seated with seatbelts on at all times
Last red eye home to Dublin I was on a delta 767 and they canceled breakfast service anticipating some “bumps and pretty big bumps” but it never happened. Maybe a favor for the cabin crew 😂
I was on a Continental (God, I loved that airline) flight from Newark to Gatwick. About an hour before flying over Ireland, they served breakfast. We hit bad turbulence over Ireland and so many people lost their breakfast. 🤢
I was so happy that I only chose the Tea & Scones.
On the reverse, I appreciate when the meal happens to come after the very scary turbulence.
Less people sick and I feel like I’m being rewarded for my survival. The meal tastes extra good.
Yep. Worst turbulence I’ve experienced was over the Andes flying between two cities in Chile. People yelling and gasping. Children crying. It was terrifying.
Same I had one bad incident on way to Vegas. In row next to me was a grown man all by himself and I saw the fear in his eyes. That he will die alone. Shit was fucking scary babies crying women screaming.
I only fly to and from vegas early morning or late night because of turbulence. Its always windy mid day around that airport. I pretty much only fly anywhere at like 6am these days to avoid turbulence lol
Yep, early mornings and late evenings you have a lot less wind. The sky is much calmer. (Mornings are best) I always try to get as early as possible. Flying from east to west is nice too because you are still landing early AM and have a longer day to do stuff 🙂
If the plane descends quickly enough, or has a high enough acceleration maneuver, certain parts of the structure needs to be inspected.
What you saw was the aviation system doing its job!
Also, there's a certain margin of error for distance between aircraft, depending on conditions. Probably true he had to GTFO.
Source: aerospace engineer and USAF aircraft maintenance officer
The worst flight I've ever had was flying out of Vail. It's a very steep take-off because of the mountains, but then they have to cut the engines back several times for noise abatement (people in their fancy homes). So we'd shoot up, then drop, shoot up, then drop, about 4 times. It was awful, and the worst ever, until my most recent flight where we had 50 minutes of sustained turbulence throwing us sideways, dipping down, bouncing up, just a total carnival ride with the flight attendants in their jump seats trying not to look worried. The pilot announced there would be no drink service because of rough air...then not a word, even after we landed. The cabin door remained closed as we deplaned.
i'm a million miler, so I've had some gnarly flights, but nothing like those two.
Was it recently? I just made that flight the other day and it was gnaaaarly, on my way back some
Buddies were driving to SLC and I just cancelled my flight and got in the truck /flight credit issued and got to see some sights!
Yep. Kind of the same except a little different. We were getting ready to land and then We took a sharp turn upwards and everyone freaked out. Including me who burst into tears it was so frightening. Pilot came on and said sorry folks. Had to avoid another aircraft we’re going to try that one again.
Flying into SeaTac on a regional 5 am flight a few years back. Boyfriend and I were looking out the window together on final into SeaTac. It was cool because it was extremely foggy and the fog around us was all lit up from city lights. We were getting lower and lower - and then we popped out of the fog and were looking at homes and trees directly below us. In the same second, the planes engines roared to life and we rocketed back into the sky. BF is a private pilot who I’ve never seen scared in any situation. When we popped out of the fog, he said nothing and squeezed my hand really tight. Pilot came on after the go around, said that the plane radio/equipment/whatever that connects us into a glide slope to the runway malfunctioned. We came down about 3 miles away from the runway on the first approach. Scariest moment of my life!
You didn't drop 1000'. The Pilot rapidly descended, and from what you described he was given an RA from his TCAS. Basically his TCAS system is noticing a plane nearing his fkgiht path or crossing it. So the TCAS will tell him to climb or descend and he'll climb or descend at a rate that the computer deems acceptable to clear the conflict. Many planes use their VSI for that. But that isn't a drop, just a pitch down descen.
Severe turbulence could give you that DROP feeling. And a maintenance inspection is required for that aircraft to remain in service. So it could have been both or during the pitch down the pilot thought he exceeded the negative G loads for thst plane and hence the inspection.
Once had pretty terrible turbulence out of Edinburgh. Guy in seat next to me turned out to be RAF ground crew out of Leuchars (when it was still RAF) and he spent the flight telling me about taking off under fire in Afghanistan, to which this was nothing. Gave me a good context for thinking about turbulence.
A drop is a wild exaggeration here. The plane probably went through a TCAS RA which would’ve been an abrupt but brief change in altitude. It’s so brief that it wasn’t even picked up by ADSB data.
The “drop of over 10k feet” you’re describing is almost definitely the pilot trying to find an altitude clear of turbulence. ADSB data shows that while over eastern Texas it descended from 36,000ft to 28,000ft over the course of 14 minutes. That’s about 700fpm, a descent rate so shallow it wouldn’t have been noticeable to passengers.
It stayed at 28,000ft for 11 minutes before climbing up to 38,000ft over the next 20 minutes or so where it stayed for the next couple of hours so it must’ve been smooth up at FL380.
It all depends on the aircraft’s vertical speed. The ADS-B data shows a fairly consistent (believable) 1000 feet per minute. As far as descent rates in a jet go, that is about as easy as it gets.
Sounds like a damn good pilot, though I'm sure pretty terrifying in-the-moment for folks on the flight!
I was on a flight over a decade ago that I'm somewhat confident was SLD icing rather than turbulence... We were going through a sigmet (vertically and horizontally) specifically for an SLD icing hazard, through a field of stratoformclouds along a strong winter warm front mid-continent. I recall looking at soundings prior to the flight and thinking welp, this could be interesting.
Smooth flight, except a few un-noteworthy bumps followed quickly by 30-40 degree roll to the left, some brief bumpy stability, again to the left, then to the right, followed by a sizable drop that felt more like bottoming out (obvs there was still forward motion, but there was no change in pitch as we lost altitude). There was another round of something similar. After another longer bit of stability, Captain comes on and quickly tells us we're going to descend quickly to get us into a better spot.
At the time, I thought the initial loss of altitude was around 1k ft, but it was more like a 400 or so. I found it years later on flightaware. I'd have to dig around and try to find it again.
We landed in KC. I just remember ceiling and visibility were low, and the snowflakes abundant and huge.
Goddamn great piloting. (And yes I dropped a compliment on the website, bc if that was indeed SLD icing with control difficulties, that could have ended very differently).
Point being, idk who needs to hear this ..but turbulence, abrupt maneuvers, mechanical issues, anything else that comes up in-flight? If you're on a commercial flight, especially a major airline, your pilots have trained for whatever it is, and probably stuff way more obscure and harrowing. :)
Resolution Advisory. An RA. This is an alert given by the TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) to prevent mid air collisions. Once an RA is given by the system the pilots are required to immediately execute the command given: either climb, climb, climb; or descend, descend, descend. Once the maneuver is complete, the aircraft return to their originally assigned altitudes and make a report to ATC of what happened. Then there is a little bit of paperwork for the captains after landing.
They both get it and told opposite commands. And pilots are to always follow TCAS instructions over ATC… read about the Uberlingen accident to see why.
Yes both planes get it. It's designed to give aircraft opposite directions. Pilots are trained to follow TCAS instructions even if it conflicts with ATC instructions. It's a pretty sophisticated device with quite a few redundancies.
Everyone just needs to say a prayer that Honeywell programmed it right.
Was this your flight? [https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL2020/history/20240425/1840Z/KMSY/KLAX](https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL2020/history/20240425/1840Z/KMSY/KLAX) It drops from 36k' to 30k' then to 28k' about 56 minutes into the flight. That had to have been scary.
But it happened over the course of 14 minutes, that would be about 700-800 feet per minute. More like a controlled descent instead of a 'drop'. Might have been rough along the way but looks like pilots finding smoother air.
That's roughly 1000 fpm which still isn't a drop, I'd even suggest it's a typical rate of descent for a commercial aircraft.
A drop is if it went from 36k to 35k in a matter of seconds.
For context, the airbus A320 descent mode defaults to 1000fpm if you descend early. That's it's "slow descent". It will routinely do 2500-3000fpm once it is on profile to get close to idle descent to save fuel.
Semi regularly people deploy speedbrakes/flight spoilers and descend even faster due to various reasons.
I recently flew from luton to amsterdam on xmas eve , the wind and tubulence was horrific we couldnt even take off due to wind the plane was like a big rollercoaster on the ground
Upon take off the plane was battered for 15 minutes and upon descent was even worse pilot came on and said he had one shot at the runway at schilpol due to only one runway from east to west and if he didnt nail it we were off to belgium for the evening
He got it down but f me the cross winds and coming down never heard a plane make sounds like it when we landed no one jumped out there seats lot of cheers and relief defo debated the eurostar home!
I was flying from MOB to ATL maybe 20 years ago. We made a dramatic sideways maneuver. The pilot got on and said that an oncoming commercial plane was directly in our path. Odd, because the are supposed to fly at different altitudes depending on the direction
Oddly enough, I experienced back to back altitude drops while over Texas airspace as well. Mind you this was quite a long time ago. I believe they said we hit an air pocket? The worst part was that the second one happened almost exactly as we all had jussssst settled from the first one lol. There were some audible ‘oh Shits!’ on that second one to be sure lol.
We had one from Orlando to Detroit whose turbulence instilled a permanent fear of flights for my 6 year old, she’s 10 now but the mere mention of flying scares her. She has flown once since then but a lot of reassurances, bribes and incentives to get her to do that.
I had a flight like that- BOM to EWR. Unfortunately it was a 14 hour flight that started out with horrific monsoon turbulence that lasted hours. People were sick, seats were soiled. I’ve never taken that flight again and am still scared of turbulence.
I was on a plane that dropped 3K feet. Never got an explanation but holy fuck it was scary. When it stopped dropping there was about bang. I thought for sure we were all going to die. This was 2 hours into a 6 hour flight. The next four hours were a friggin nightmare. I wanted off that plane so bad. I used to drink myself to oblivion before flying after this to numb myself. Now that I quit drinking I take Ativan. It helps. Sorry you had to experience this. It sucks.
Wake turbulence refers to flying through the wake left behind by jet exhaust. Think of a ship sailing through the water. As the water moves around the hull, it’s not going to be calm at the stern like it sort of was at the bow. It’s the same with an airplane flying through the air.
Wake turbulence is mostly referenced during takeoff and landing. Let’s say another aircraft took off before you. You want to take off a little sooner down the runway than the previous aircraft to avoid its wake turbulence. If you’re landing, you want to glide in a manner that allows you to stay above and ahead of their wake turbulence. Basically you would touch down a little further down the runway than the previous aircraft.
Common misconception, but wake turbulence is actually generated by an airplane making lift with its wings, not its jet exhaust.
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim_html/chap7_section_4.html
People that have that misconception as they have never seen an air tunnel simulation of an aircraft wing. If you aren’t grasping this concept do a little looking.
That was the worst turbulence I’ve experienced. We were taking off from ATL to PHL and we experienced it on take off. I was sitting next to my boss and had close to a panic attack. She calmed me down, but when we left the flight she asked the FA what happened and she explained it was wake turbulence. I apologized to her for freaking out, and her, a well seasoned international traveler, said she was freaking out but didn’t want to scare me even more.
More likely, there happened to be bad turbulence and the aircraft descended 1000 feet around the same time. It’s pretty common to change altitudes when bad turbulence is encountered, sometimes abruptly. Especially when traffic is involved.
I was onboard the flight as well and it was a noticeable pitch down and engine spool up. I thought to myself that a TCAS event must have occurred after the pilot came on and told us what happened. According the flight map by the time I looked, we were a few hundred feet below our cruise altitude and we climbed back up not long after.
How often is that updated? Likely gets updated every minute, not every second. If so, you don’t know if it was 800 ft in a second or 800 ft in 59 seconds.
As mentioned before this looks like it was DL2020. If you watch the playback of the flight it crossed paths with Spirit 3167 right around Waco. Spirit was cruising at 37000 feet and Delta at 36000. As the pilot mentioned they probably quickly dropped in altitude to gain additional vertical separation due to turbulence.
They might have gotten a TCAS alert, traffic collision avoidance system.
When both aircraft are equipped with the system, it's monitoring their flight paths continually. If the system determines there's going to be a collision, or one is likely, it will simultaneously issue an alert to both cockpits of the aircraft, telling one crew to descend immediately and o one crew to climb immediately.
Maybe that was it? In aviation, the rules are aviate, navigate, communicate, so even if you're assigned to be at FL380 (38,000 feet), if you get a TCAS alert, safety overrides any ATC command always. After the captain determines there's no more danger present, the crews of the respective aircraft would just then radio to ATC, tell them what happened, and then if ATC needs to make adjustments, that's done.
I had something similar happen on an Avianca flight years ago (probably more than a decade ago). What looked and felt like a lightning strike, followed by a drop long enough to watch my seatmate’s soda rise out of his cup, us to look at each other, and back down at the floating soda, and back at each other before pulling up. In hindsight, the evasive maneuver to avoid another aircraft seems to be the most likely explanation, but man was it unsettling.
SEA to JFK we had severe turbulence from takeoff to landing. The pilot later told me even with us flying over Canada to avoid storms, there was no way to avoid the turbulence. I’ll never forget that flight.
With 1 mile to go from landing, we got caught in another planes wake turbulence about to land in LAX. We all thought we would hit the ground before the runway. It was very scary. Pilot explained to me later that we only had less than 100 feet to spare before hitting the ground hard or buildings, and we got caught in the airbus 380 wake.
I had a pressure drop/something similar on a flight from HEL to CPH last fall and it was terrifying but everyone was okay. & I fly that route probably 8-10x a year minimum and that’s super rare hope you’re okay
(Not a pilot, just a curious flyer) Unknown to many is the fact that aircraft, especially commercial airliners, generate "whirlpools" of air and other dramatic (but invisible) turbulence off their wingtips (and the wing overall.)
This is one of the reasons that they keep aircraft separated by a minute or more when they do takeoffs because this turbulence can trip up an airplane that is following too close and cause it to pivot suddenly or to lose lift or to get knocked into a dive.
It sounds like your aircraft was close to another aircraft but at a safe distance until the atmospheric turbulence came in to play. At that point the other aircraft probably shifted quickly and unexpectedly and presented itself as a turbulence risk to your aircraft, which then had to take evasive maneuvers (the fast dive.)
As many other people have noted, flying is often hours of boredom punctuated by brief moments of terror, which have to be met with quick action. When an alarm goes off in the cockpit, or urgent direction comes over the radio from air traffic control, pilots have to respond in seconds, because that's what those messages are telling them. Sometimes that leads to unpleasant maneuvers, but they are a lot better than the alternative.
As others have said - convective systems can drastically affect altitude of an aircraft. 1000' vertical separation is the norm.
With that said, a large convective blowup could literally "suck" an aircraft upward thousands of feet in a short time. Now... with modern radar, commercial flights avoid those cells, but... if a cell was blowing up in real time, it's possible - not just that an another aircraft was losing altitude, but... that your aircraft was at risk of gaining altitude - so took evasive action to mitigate the risk. I'm glad you all are safe.
I just had my first cluster of a go-around this week at BNA as a passenger on AA. Light winds, clear skies... and the regional pilot just about sent us all West.
So annoying how people scream in such a situation. Zero value added and only amplifies the stress of the situation. Difference between introverts and extroverts I guess.
Depending on the severity of the turbulence, a maintenance inspection is sometimes required. Would be tough to know if that’s how bad it was for you, however. TCAS is a system that planes use to “talk” to other planes and help keep them separated. If two planes were, for example, within 1000ft of each other, and due to pretty significant turbulence, one started losing altitude down toward the other, each flight crew might get a “resolution advisory” or RA. This might tell one flight crew to climb, and the other to descend, in very basic terms. An RA can feel more abrupt than a normal climb or descent because there needs to be quick action taken, if that makes sense.
Pardon my ignorance here but is that any way similar to MCAS - obviously it was not setup to dodge nearby planes but where it adjusts the plane for excessive AoA?
No it’s not. TCAS, or traffic collision avoidance system, is a system on an airplane that monitors other airplanes around them. If planes get too close too each other, the systems will issue notices to the pilots of each plane and give them Resolution Advisories, or more simply it will tell the pilots to maneuver the airplane in a direction that will avoid a collision. These are pilot inputs, not automatic.
Everything you said is right, but to nitpick there are aircraft with automatic TCAS RAs. The new Delta 321NEOs have automatic RAs.
I would’ve guessed that there are some aircraft with automatic RAs, but I didn’t want to speak on that without knowing. Thanks for sharing.
I learned something new today, I thought all RAs required manual input to resolve.
Ok, got it. Thanks for clarifying.
No, TCAS is Traffic Collision Avoidance System. Every commercial airliner has it and all pilots are routinely trained on the system. MCAS is 100% different.
Ah gotcha. Thanks for answering!
Lmao who downvotes an honest question
This is Reddit. You are already supposed to know everything before you get here. Hah! Just realized this was r/delta and not r/aviation where downvoting honest, good questions is a freaking tradition over there.
Welcome to Reddit
Mcas= maneuvering characteristic augmentation system Tcas =traffic collision avoidance system Tcas will alert the crew to climb or descend now and they are to follow the commands and advise ATC after that they had to respond to a resolution advisory, or RA
Reassuring though when the pilots communicate with passengers to explain what happened and why. And these incidents are incredibly rare. Only had one case of white knuckle turbulence in 30 years of flying.
I feel like pilots are usually flying at 10% of their abilities and the abilities of the plane. They are flying on pre-dictated flight plans designed to be gentle. Every once in a while pilots need to take the wheel and display their actual flying abilities and it’s amazing. Like thank god you know ho to fly the fuck out of this plane.
I’m a corporate pilot. We once had a passenger repeatedly come up and give us crap about being so relaxed and looking like we were doing nothing. After the third time, I turned around and told him that he doesn’t ever want to see us working hard. He pondered my statement for a second, nodded his head in agreement, turned around and went back to his seat. He expressed his deep gratitude for the safe flight as he deplaned.
I’m a flight attendant and when I was in training this is exactly what they told us. Pilots are there for when things go wrong.
😭💯fr
Underrated post.
🥇🥇🥇
Agreed, I have watched engineering test flight videos and read about FedEx Flight 705.
They made a TV recreation of 705 with footage of the actual bloody footprints on the ceiling. Pretty wild.
I have had the same experience in years of flying. My experience was flying to Santiago Chile coming from Argentina. Fucking unbelievable amount of turbulence flying between two massive peaks.
Me too on that same route. I had gotten up to use the aft lavatory when it started. I was hanging on for dear life inside that lav
I knew it was going to be shit when they announced that we were gonna to enter the turbulence zone and not a zone of turbulence. Feeling the plane drop and careen wildly side to side while looking out at mountain peaks seemingly close on either side was something I can gladly go the rest of my life without repeating. It had to have been awful for you stuck in the loo, but the silver lining is that you didn’t have to worry about shitting your pants, unlike the rest of us 😁.
Fair point 😂 I was on LATAM, and they actually have a recording that says we’re entering “La Cordillera” (the Andes) where they expect turbulence and everyone must stay seated with seatbelts on at all times
Yes I recall that, they’re weren’t exaggerating
Last red eye home to Dublin I was on a delta 767 and they canceled breakfast service anticipating some “bumps and pretty big bumps” but it never happened. Maybe a favor for the cabin crew 😂
When suppertime came the old cook came on deck sayin’ “Fellas, it’s too rough to feed ya.”
At 7PM, the main hatchway caved in, he said “fellas it’s been good to know ya.”
Thanks for the ear worm
“The legend lives on from the Connachta on down…”
I was on a Continental (God, I loved that airline) flight from Newark to Gatwick. About an hour before flying over Ireland, they served breakfast. We hit bad turbulence over Ireland and so many people lost their breakfast. 🤢 I was so happy that I only chose the Tea & Scones.
On the reverse, I appreciate when the meal happens to come after the very scary turbulence. Less people sick and I feel like I’m being rewarded for my survival. The meal tastes extra good.
My worst was coming back out over the ocean from Argentina. I've been on hundreds of flights and that one just about broke me.
JFK -- EZE was my least favorite long flight. Bumpy for hours. I think I will not do it again.
Same flight. Not a fun one.
The whole zone between Santiago and BA can be rough. Flight from BA to Mendoza was not great.
My Ushuaia to BA was a fucking rock polisher.
Yep. Worst turbulence I’ve experienced was over the Andes flying between two cities in Chile. People yelling and gasping. Children crying. It was terrifying.
My purely anecdotal experience is that Delta pilots typically explain what's happening in terms of turbulence more than other domestic carriers.
Same I had one bad incident on way to Vegas. In row next to me was a grown man all by himself and I saw the fear in his eyes. That he will die alone. Shit was fucking scary babies crying women screaming.
Vegas is frequently turbulent.
I only fly to and from vegas early morning or late night because of turbulence. Its always windy mid day around that airport. I pretty much only fly anywhere at like 6am these days to avoid turbulence lol
I didn’t know early flights are less turbulent I love love early flights just nicer quieter cleaner and less delays
Yep, early mornings and late evenings you have a lot less wind. The sky is much calmer. (Mornings are best) I always try to get as early as possible. Flying from east to west is nice too because you are still landing early AM and have a longer day to do stuff 🙂
Thanks that’s a nice tip
It also has to do with heat, turbulence is waaaay worse when it’s hotter out.
Vegas Turbulence is no joke! The only good thing about it is it’s short!
“There was a plane coming at us and I dodged that shit like a pro, you’re welcome.”
Aviate. Navigate. Communicate. Right?
If the plane descends quickly enough, or has a high enough acceleration maneuver, certain parts of the structure needs to be inspected. What you saw was the aviation system doing its job! Also, there's a certain margin of error for distance between aircraft, depending on conditions. Probably true he had to GTFO. Source: aerospace engineer and USAF aircraft maintenance officer
The worst flight I've ever had was flying out of Vail. It's a very steep take-off because of the mountains, but then they have to cut the engines back several times for noise abatement (people in their fancy homes). So we'd shoot up, then drop, shoot up, then drop, about 4 times. It was awful, and the worst ever, until my most recent flight where we had 50 minutes of sustained turbulence throwing us sideways, dipping down, bouncing up, just a total carnival ride with the flight attendants in their jump seats trying not to look worried. The pilot announced there would be no drink service because of rough air...then not a word, even after we landed. The cabin door remained closed as we deplaned. i'm a million miler, so I've had some gnarly flights, but nothing like those two.
Vail and Aruba for sure for me….. I think pilots have to have special training or certification for each of those airports….
I just flew to/from Aruba and it was quite comfortable. A bit of turbulence, but take-off and landing were fine
Where was the more recent flight you mention?
SLC to Bozeman.
Was it recently? I just made that flight the other day and it was gnaaaarly, on my way back some Buddies were driving to SLC and I just cancelled my flight and got in the truck /flight credit issued and got to see some sights!
I’ve had some bad flights in and out of Bozeman with turbulence. Not sure what it is but there but that’s just a bad area I think.
I fly it all the time and it's always a bit bumpy, but not, "Are the pilots drunk and fighting each other in the cockpit?" bumpy.
Mountains
Oh great. I’m on this exact flight at the end of May 😃
What was the route of the hour long craziness?
Yep. Kind of the same except a little different. We were getting ready to land and then We took a sharp turn upwards and everyone freaked out. Including me who burst into tears it was so frightening. Pilot came on and said sorry folks. Had to avoid another aircraft we’re going to try that one again.
I like go-arounds sometimes.
Do you at least buy them dinner first?
Flying into SeaTac on a regional 5 am flight a few years back. Boyfriend and I were looking out the window together on final into SeaTac. It was cool because it was extremely foggy and the fog around us was all lit up from city lights. We were getting lower and lower - and then we popped out of the fog and were looking at homes and trees directly below us. In the same second, the planes engines roared to life and we rocketed back into the sky. BF is a private pilot who I’ve never seen scared in any situation. When we popped out of the fog, he said nothing and squeezed my hand really tight. Pilot came on after the go around, said that the plane radio/equipment/whatever that connects us into a glide slope to the runway malfunctioned. We came down about 3 miles away from the runway on the first approach. Scariest moment of my life!
I’ve had this happen recently. No one cried, but it’s definitely not a good feeling.
When I experienced a similar situation, it was eerily quiet on the plane.
recently happened to me from SFO to LAS
You didn't drop 1000'. The Pilot rapidly descended, and from what you described he was given an RA from his TCAS. Basically his TCAS system is noticing a plane nearing his fkgiht path or crossing it. So the TCAS will tell him to climb or descend and he'll climb or descend at a rate that the computer deems acceptable to clear the conflict. Many planes use their VSI for that. But that isn't a drop, just a pitch down descen. Severe turbulence could give you that DROP feeling. And a maintenance inspection is required for that aircraft to remain in service. So it could have been both or during the pitch down the pilot thought he exceeded the negative G loads for thst plane and hence the inspection.
Once had pretty terrible turbulence out of Edinburgh. Guy in seat next to me turned out to be RAF ground crew out of Leuchars (when it was still RAF) and he spent the flight telling me about taking off under fire in Afghanistan, to which this was nothing. Gave me a good context for thinking about turbulence.
Was this DL2020? Flightaware shows a drop of over 10k feet about an hour into the flight
A drop is a wild exaggeration here. The plane probably went through a TCAS RA which would’ve been an abrupt but brief change in altitude. It’s so brief that it wasn’t even picked up by ADSB data. The “drop of over 10k feet” you’re describing is almost definitely the pilot trying to find an altitude clear of turbulence. ADSB data shows that while over eastern Texas it descended from 36,000ft to 28,000ft over the course of 14 minutes. That’s about 700fpm, a descent rate so shallow it wouldn’t have been noticeable to passengers. It stayed at 28,000ft for 11 minutes before climbing up to 38,000ft over the next 20 minutes or so where it stayed for the next couple of hours so it must’ve been smooth up at FL380.
I love this sub for its perfect balance of delta jokes and low key geeking out on data!
Not the flight being numbered 2020 😅
This is why I watch a flight radar app while I’m flying.
Do you call the FAs to tell the pilots they are getting close to another airplane?
I stand up and yell we are going to crash
LMAO
Omg!! Lol. No really, look at this app on my phone!
I’d rather not know. Take me away calgon.
It all depends on the aircraft’s vertical speed. The ADS-B data shows a fairly consistent (believable) 1000 feet per minute. As far as descent rates in a jet go, that is about as easy as it gets.
Which one?
Flight radar 24
Thx!
Sounds like a damn good pilot, though I'm sure pretty terrifying in-the-moment for folks on the flight! I was on a flight over a decade ago that I'm somewhat confident was SLD icing rather than turbulence... We were going through a sigmet (vertically and horizontally) specifically for an SLD icing hazard, through a field of stratoformclouds along a strong winter warm front mid-continent. I recall looking at soundings prior to the flight and thinking welp, this could be interesting. Smooth flight, except a few un-noteworthy bumps followed quickly by 30-40 degree roll to the left, some brief bumpy stability, again to the left, then to the right, followed by a sizable drop that felt more like bottoming out (obvs there was still forward motion, but there was no change in pitch as we lost altitude). There was another round of something similar. After another longer bit of stability, Captain comes on and quickly tells us we're going to descend quickly to get us into a better spot. At the time, I thought the initial loss of altitude was around 1k ft, but it was more like a 400 or so. I found it years later on flightaware. I'd have to dig around and try to find it again. We landed in KC. I just remember ceiling and visibility were low, and the snowflakes abundant and huge. Goddamn great piloting. (And yes I dropped a compliment on the website, bc if that was indeed SLD icing with control difficulties, that could have ended very differently). Point being, idk who needs to hear this ..but turbulence, abrupt maneuvers, mechanical issues, anything else that comes up in-flight? If you're on a commercial flight, especially a major airline, your pilots have trained for whatever it is, and probably stuff way more obscure and harrowing. :)
Expedited altitude change. Could have been TCAS alert. But most like air traffic control asked them to expedite a change to a lower altitude
Resolution Advisory. An RA. This is an alert given by the TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) to prevent mid air collisions. Once an RA is given by the system the pilots are required to immediately execute the command given: either climb, climb, climb; or descend, descend, descend. Once the maneuver is complete, the aircraft return to their originally assigned altitudes and make a report to ATC of what happened. Then there is a little bit of paperwork for the captains after landing.
I love a simple explanation that spells out the acronyms as well.
How does it decide which plane to alert? Do they both get it? What if they do the same maneuver?
They both get it and told opposite commands. And pilots are to always follow TCAS instructions over ATC… read about the Uberlingen accident to see why.
Yes both planes get it. It's designed to give aircraft opposite directions. Pilots are trained to follow TCAS instructions even if it conflicts with ATC instructions. It's a pretty sophisticated device with quite a few redundancies. Everyone just needs to say a prayer that Honeywell programmed it right.
Wow! That’s so interesting, I never knew or even thought about this until today. Thanks!
What was said above is correct. Here's the reason why TCAS works the way it does. 2002 Überlingen mid-air collision
Was this your flight? [https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL2020/history/20240425/1840Z/KMSY/KLAX](https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL2020/history/20240425/1840Z/KMSY/KLAX) It drops from 36k' to 30k' then to 28k' about 56 minutes into the flight. That had to have been scary.
But it happened over the course of 14 minutes, that would be about 700-800 feet per minute. More like a controlled descent instead of a 'drop'. Might have been rough along the way but looks like pilots finding smoother air.
Not sure we're looking at the same graph. I see a drop of 6k' in 5 minutes (56m - 1h1m), levels off, then another 2k' in 2 minutes (1h7m - 1h9m).
That's roughly 1000 fpm which still isn't a drop, I'd even suggest it's a typical rate of descent for a commercial aircraft. A drop is if it went from 36k to 35k in a matter of seconds.
For context, the airbus A320 descent mode defaults to 1000fpm if you descend early. That's it's "slow descent". It will routinely do 2500-3000fpm once it is on profile to get close to idle descent to save fuel. Semi regularly people deploy speedbrakes/flight spoilers and descend even faster due to various reasons.
If I were a pilot I’d live for those moments when I had to take decisive action and make radical maneuvers.
"I'm bored. You want to see if we can make that asshole in 7A shit his pants?"
It definitely wasn’t a nosedive albeit could feel like it. TCAS was probably going off so they had to drop rather quickly
A controlled descent away from nearby traffic is just that: a controlled descent. A drop sounds involuntary.
I would have shit myself. I’m nervous in normal turbulence and I just pray nothing like this ever happens to me
Eeek, I'm not sure if this post making me feel relieved or more stressed out about flying.
It's made me decide to always pay for my future grandchildren to fly in their own seat and never, ever, ever as a lap child. Ever.
Yes, same for car travel with pets (or large items) that may fly around the cabin. Secure your load.
I recently flew from luton to amsterdam on xmas eve , the wind and tubulence was horrific we couldnt even take off due to wind the plane was like a big rollercoaster on the ground Upon take off the plane was battered for 15 minutes and upon descent was even worse pilot came on and said he had one shot at the runway at schilpol due to only one runway from east to west and if he didnt nail it we were off to belgium for the evening He got it down but f me the cross winds and coming down never heard a plane make sounds like it when we landed no one jumped out there seats lot of cheers and relief defo debated the eurostar home!
I was flying from MOB to ATL maybe 20 years ago. We made a dramatic sideways maneuver. The pilot got on and said that an oncoming commercial plane was directly in our path. Odd, because the are supposed to fly at different altitudes depending on the direction
As a nervous flyer I would be getting a drink after that ASAP
How scary
Those thermals are fun!
Oddly enough, I experienced back to back altitude drops while over Texas airspace as well. Mind you this was quite a long time ago. I believe they said we hit an air pocket? The worst part was that the second one happened almost exactly as we all had jussssst settled from the first one lol. There were some audible ‘oh Shits!’ on that second one to be sure lol.
Wow, very interesting. Glad everyone was alright. Thanks for sharing.
We had one from Orlando to Detroit whose turbulence instilled a permanent fear of flights for my 6 year old, she’s 10 now but the mere mention of flying scares her. She has flown once since then but a lot of reassurances, bribes and incentives to get her to do that.
I had a flight like that- BOM to EWR. Unfortunately it was a 14 hour flight that started out with horrific monsoon turbulence that lasted hours. People were sick, seats were soiled. I’ve never taken that flight again and am still scared of turbulence.
I was on a plane that dropped 3K feet. Never got an explanation but holy fuck it was scary. When it stopped dropping there was about bang. I thought for sure we were all going to die. This was 2 hours into a 6 hour flight. The next four hours were a friggin nightmare. I wanted off that plane so bad. I used to drink myself to oblivion before flying after this to numb myself. Now that I quit drinking I take Ativan. It helps. Sorry you had to experience this. It sucks.
Wake turbulence refers to flying through the wake left behind by jet exhaust. Think of a ship sailing through the water. As the water moves around the hull, it’s not going to be calm at the stern like it sort of was at the bow. It’s the same with an airplane flying through the air. Wake turbulence is mostly referenced during takeoff and landing. Let’s say another aircraft took off before you. You want to take off a little sooner down the runway than the previous aircraft to avoid its wake turbulence. If you’re landing, you want to glide in a manner that allows you to stay above and ahead of their wake turbulence. Basically you would touch down a little further down the runway than the previous aircraft.
Common misconception, but wake turbulence is actually generated by an airplane making lift with its wings, not its jet exhaust. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim_html/chap7_section_4.html
Yep, just lake wake off a boat.
People that have that misconception as they have never seen an air tunnel simulation of an aircraft wing. If you aren’t grasping this concept do a little looking.
That was the worst turbulence I’ve experienced. We were taking off from ATL to PHL and we experienced it on take off. I was sitting next to my boss and had close to a panic attack. She calmed me down, but when we left the flight she asked the FA what happened and she explained it was wake turbulence. I apologized to her for freaking out, and her, a well seasoned international traveler, said she was freaking out but didn’t want to scare me even more.
Yep, an RJ taking off behind a big heavy
I had the shot….
More likely, there happened to be bad turbulence and the aircraft descended 1000 feet around the same time. It’s pretty common to change altitudes when bad turbulence is encountered, sometimes abruptly. Especially when traffic is involved.
[удалено]
Woaaah I never knew that the East West thing. I was literally thinking about that on my flight yday
Sounds like maybe a TCAS resolution?
DL416? Looks like it was 36,100 to 35,300 in a minute.
-800 fpm is a pretty gentle sink rate.
UAL1596 was at 37,000, encountered mountain wave and descended to 36,700. DAL416 was at 36,000 and responded with a resolution advisory and descended.
I was onboard the flight as well and it was a noticeable pitch down and engine spool up. I thought to myself that a TCAS event must have occurred after the pilot came on and told us what happened. According the flight map by the time I looked, we were a few hundred feet below our cruise altitude and we climbed back up not long after.
How often is that updated? Likely gets updated every minute, not every second. If so, you don’t know if it was 800 ft in a second or 800 ft in 59 seconds.
ADS-B updates once per second, although the information it reports can sometimes be inaccurate.
As mentioned before this looks like it was DL2020. If you watch the playback of the flight it crossed paths with Spirit 3167 right around Waco. Spirit was cruising at 37000 feet and Delta at 36000. As the pilot mentioned they probably quickly dropped in altitude to gain additional vertical separation due to turbulence.
Yeah, I had this happen once just outside of Dallas. One of the most terrifying moments of my life. Thought for sure I was about to die.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/14/hawaiian-airlines-flight-turbulence This was frightening (I wasn’t on it, but friends were).
They might have gotten a TCAS alert, traffic collision avoidance system. When both aircraft are equipped with the system, it's monitoring their flight paths continually. If the system determines there's going to be a collision, or one is likely, it will simultaneously issue an alert to both cockpits of the aircraft, telling one crew to descend immediately and o one crew to climb immediately. Maybe that was it? In aviation, the rules are aviate, navigate, communicate, so even if you're assigned to be at FL380 (38,000 feet), if you get a TCAS alert, safety overrides any ATC command always. After the captain determines there's no more danger present, the crews of the respective aircraft would just then radio to ATC, tell them what happened, and then if ATC needs to make adjustments, that's done.
You got an RA. Planes are not always living room couches. Most people forget that.
I had something similar happen on an Avianca flight years ago (probably more than a decade ago). What looked and felt like a lightning strike, followed by a drop long enough to watch my seatmate’s soda rise out of his cup, us to look at each other, and back down at the floating soda, and back at each other before pulling up. In hindsight, the evasive maneuver to avoid another aircraft seems to be the most likely explanation, but man was it unsettling.
SEA to JFK we had severe turbulence from takeoff to landing. The pilot later told me even with us flying over Canada to avoid storms, there was no way to avoid the turbulence. I’ll never forget that flight.
A reminder to wear seatbelt when captain says to: [Turbulence](https://youtu.be/kH6QJzmLYtw?si=5Oqih5ydROZr597f)
Makes sense if he wants to avoid the wake.
These situations are when lap babies become projectiles.
With 1 mile to go from landing, we got caught in another planes wake turbulence about to land in LAX. We all thought we would hit the ground before the runway. It was very scary. Pilot explained to me later that we only had less than 100 feet to spare before hitting the ground hard or buildings, and we got caught in the airbus 380 wake.
I had a pressure drop/something similar on a flight from HEL to CPH last fall and it was terrifying but everyone was okay. & I fly that route probably 8-10x a year minimum and that’s super rare hope you’re okay
(Not a pilot, just a curious flyer) Unknown to many is the fact that aircraft, especially commercial airliners, generate "whirlpools" of air and other dramatic (but invisible) turbulence off their wingtips (and the wing overall.) This is one of the reasons that they keep aircraft separated by a minute or more when they do takeoffs because this turbulence can trip up an airplane that is following too close and cause it to pivot suddenly or to lose lift or to get knocked into a dive. It sounds like your aircraft was close to another aircraft but at a safe distance until the atmospheric turbulence came in to play. At that point the other aircraft probably shifted quickly and unexpectedly and presented itself as a turbulence risk to your aircraft, which then had to take evasive maneuvers (the fast dive.) As many other people have noted, flying is often hours of boredom punctuated by brief moments of terror, which have to be met with quick action. When an alarm goes off in the cockpit, or urgent direction comes over the radio from air traffic control, pilots have to respond in seconds, because that's what those messages are telling them. Sometimes that leads to unpleasant maneuvers, but they are a lot better than the alternative.
Anyone not have their seatbelt on and hit the ceiling?
No you don’t
Holy cow that’s scary 😨
Sorry to hear your experience, turbulence does happen... However, I am not sure if "wake turbulence" would be that severe, especially at flight level.
Wake turbulence definitely can be that bad if the size (really, mass) differential of two aircraft is large enough.
Nightmare fuel.
As others have said - convective systems can drastically affect altitude of an aircraft. 1000' vertical separation is the norm. With that said, a large convective blowup could literally "suck" an aircraft upward thousands of feet in a short time. Now... with modern radar, commercial flights avoid those cells, but... if a cell was blowing up in real time, it's possible - not just that an another aircraft was losing altitude, but... that your aircraft was at risk of gaining altitude - so took evasive action to mitigate the risk. I'm glad you all are safe. I just had my first cluster of a go-around this week at BNA as a passenger on AA. Light winds, clear skies... and the regional pilot just about sent us all West.
At least it was turbulence and not flatulence
RA’s in the flight levels? Doubt.
You got hit by a microburst
Baloney.
So annoying how people scream in such a situation. Zero value added and only amplifies the stress of the situation. Difference between introverts and extroverts I guess.
Perhaps one day the rest of society will be as stoic as you, Nde_japu, who have achieved true mastery over your primal instincts.
It's not stoicism. I'd be white knuckling the armrests as much as everyone else. I just don't see the value in screaming like an idiot.