Worst turbulence you've experienced?

Worst case of turbulence was on a E145, IAH-BTR. We had to divert into Shreveport because the hostie hit her head on the ceiling, was knocked unconscious and sustained a broken leg. A few passengers were reporting injuries due to unsecured objects flying around the cabin.

I have experienced pretty much everything there is to experience on a plane apart from an outright accident but I will never forget that flight.

What's more frightening is low level windshear. 200ft above the ground and watching the ASI unwind to the stop is a lot worse for your health than a bit of bumping around!

If any of you were flying in or out of London this evening, I bet you had fun. The fear in the pilots voices made it interesting :D
 
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I am travel by plane quite often actually and sadly I am a nervous flyer. Recently had tea canceled due to turbulence, it was nowhere near as bad as some of the stories you guys share. I would have a heart attack if the plane I was on was to drop a "couple of thousand feet" as you put it, it's so scary!! I didn't even know that could happen, for me it would mean we're going to crash. Good thing is, now I won't panic as much if the plane drops a couple thousand feet in the future.
 
Suarez7 said:
I'd advise any nervous flyers to watch that new Horizon program, I'm pretty okay with it but it reinforced some of my concerns. Some of the stories it shows from back in the 50's though makes me wonder how air travel was even allowed but without those tragedies we wouldn't have the safety we do today.
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do you know the name of the episode?
 
Salt Lake City, UT to San Jose, CA earlier this year.

It was my fifth flight ever, so somewhat still inexperienced as I hadn't felt much turbulence in the previous 4 flights. The plane took off then hit turbulence pretty early - before we even got to 10,000ft for use of personal electronics etc... In the end it took 5-10 mins to reach 10,000ft.
 
GhostWKD said:
Once had turbulence where the plane just suddenly dropped by what must've been 10ft+ or something, felt like I was on one of those theme park rides that suddenly lets you drop in free-fall for a few seconds.

Otherwise nothing more than the shaking/jumping around stuff really :)
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Similar experience but it lasted a couple of seconds so must have been about 50ft+. Was quite scary at the time!
 
Definitely the worst turbulence is have experienced was on a small 20 seater Metroliner heading back into Darwin from a remote community. About 15 minutes from landing we flew through a storm. The Metroliners have no door to the cockpit and when you leaned over the aisle you could see the pilots and the weather radar between them. Most of the radar was in red with one little bit of yellow in the middle that we were going through. Yellow should have been easier going but the rain was so loud on the skin of the plane that it drowned out the sound of the engines. We had a few small drops in altitude(probably smaller than they seemed) but it was the amount of yaw from the wind and watching the pilots trying to keep control was the worst bit. The only time i have been on a flight with screaming passengers.

Small planes in the Wet season are nearly always uncomfortable flights because of the thermals.
 
Really should not have looked at this thread, all 4 pages. I will probably be going on a flight next month. First one since 2009, I avoid flying if I can. After reading these horror stories I'd rather bloody walk!
 
Up until my late teens I had been on a short-haul flight almost every year, going to visit the family on my mother's side in Ireland. But trips have become fewer and I found that when I first got back on a plane in my twenties I felt pretty nervous, something I never had before.

Thankfully I haven't experienced any severe turbulence, and I have to agree with the above comment by Nerusy that hearing that others have experienced it and it seems to be quite common, I think it would panic me less now.
 
According to this article the claims of falling "thousands of feet" is BS basically.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/9937719/What-causes-turbulence-and-is-it-dangerous.html

"Severe turbulence is extremely rare. In a flying career of over 10,000 hours, I have experienced severe turbulence for about five minutes in total. It is extremely uncomfortable but not dangerous. The aircraft may be deviating in altitude by up to 100 feet (30 metres) or so, up as well as down, but nothing like the thousands of feet you hear some people talking about when it comes to turbulence.
I should stress that this level of turbulence is so rare that leisure travellers will almost certainly never experience it and nor will most business people."
- British Airways pilot Steve Allright

Not saying it doesn't feel like that though :p :(
 
alx said:
According to this article the claims of falling "thousands of feet" is BS basically.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/9937719/What-causes-turbulence-and-is-it-dangerous.html

"Severe turbulence is extremely rare. In a flying career of over 10,000 hours, I have experienced severe turbulence for about five minutes in total. It is extremely uncomfortable but not dangerous. The aircraft may be deviating in altitude by up to 100 feet (30 metres) or so, up as well as down, but nothing like the thousands of feet you hear some people talking about when it comes to turbulence.
I should stress that this level of turbulence is so rare that leisure travellers will almost certainly never experience it and nor will most business people."
- British Airways pilot Steve Allright

Not saying it doesn't feel like that though :p :(
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I am familiar with one particular incident in which an aircraft dropped by about 1200ft in the space of 6-12 seconds after encountering a strong downdraught. These incidents are very rare in the UK, though.
 
this very definitely does happen! I experienced it first hand, we were over the southern alps when what I now understand to be a perfect storm of weather fronts decided to clash heads, initially we had the plane bouncing around, dropping a few metres and then we went into a bouncy dive. 'unable to maintain altitude' was the phrase used by the pilot and it went on for a good few minutes and was utterly terrifying! so whilst I'm sure some people exaggerate their air pocket drops, planes very definitely do plummet out of the sky, I was on one that did!
 
Its possible... in my youth I took an aeronautical course at the local CFE and we covered a lot on turbulence and how it happens and so on... very terrifying stuff!

If you get wind speed changes and pressure drops in quick sequence and in the right ( or wrong from the wings point of view ) way you effectively stall the wing and it no longer provides any lift!.... so you can end up with one wing providing lift and one not... or both stalling even though you may be travelling at crusing speeds. The wing only works when it is cutting through smooth air, and causing a pressure build up underneath and a pressure drop above.. interrupt that nice smooth airflow and you are fighting to maintain lift.

Imagine you are flying along in nice fairly still smooth air, you get nice lift and can cruise along smooth as silk... suddenly a pocket of air comes where the wind is at 90o to youre flightpath... the wing suddenly has no nice airflow and lift is interrupted, you will drop.... until you can establish a smooth flow again and regain lift. This can take a while if the air is very turbulent and you will switch from having lift to not having lift... or buffet and bounce around the sky filling up youre boxer shorts :p

I have flown 8 times and thankfully never so much as felt anything other than smooth flights :cool:
 
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Will Gill said:
this very definitely does happen! I experienced it first hand, we were over the southern alps when what I now understand to be a perfect storm of weather fronts decided to clash heads, initially we had the plane bouncing around, dropping a few metres and then we went into a bouncy dive. 'unable to maintain altitude' was the phrase used by the pilot and it went on for a good few minutes and was utterly terrifying! so whilst I'm sure some people exaggerate their air pocket drops, planes very definitely do plummet out of the sky, I was on one that did!
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Agreed, I was more getting at the air pocket/turbulence drops that people sometimes claim are thousands of feet.
 
We had some bad turbulence on a filght from malaga, from reading this thread we had a few "drops" too. It was far worse than the above video, people were being shook everywhere and then you would get all light for a second and then forced back down into your seat.
Crying and screaming everywhere then a flight attendant asks if a doctor is onboard as someone's passed out, My girlfriend can see him and says "OMG OMG his eyes are in the back of his head!" and I'm like "this is the best ride ever!" :D

I hate heights but love rollercoasters etc, inside a plane during turbulence you get the effect of a rollercoaster but without the view....:D
 
Unluckyalf said:
Definitely the worst turbulence is have experienced was on a small 20 seater Metroliner heading back into Darwin from a remote community. About 15 minutes from landing we flew through a storm. The Metroliners have no door to the cockpit and when you leaned over the aisle you could see the pilots and the weather radar between them. Most of the radar was in red with one little bit of yellow in the middle that we were going through. Yellow should have been easier going but the rain was so loud on the skin of the plane that it drowned out the sound of the engines. We had a few small drops in altitude(probably smaller than they seemed) but it was the amount of yaw from the wind and watching the pilots trying to keep control was the worst bit. The only time i have been on a flight with screaming passengers.

Small planes in the Wet season are nearly always uncomfortable flights because of the thermals.
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This I was on a Jetstar flight and as we came into land we dropped a fair bit and had to perform a "go around" for a couple of seconds slightly concerning then in awe of the power engines had to lift us back into the sky!:D
 
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