Injuries from airplane turbulence on the rise
Airlines
'need to take it seriously,' says scientist who studies high-altitude
bumps
An ambulance departs St. John's International
Airport on Jan. 24. Several passengers and crew were taken to hospital with
unspecified injuries that occurred when their American Airlines flight heading
to Milan from Miami encountered severe turbulence. (CP)
Extreme
turbulence of the kind that injured seven people on a flight diverted to
Newfoundland on Sunday appears on the rise, and airlines need improved
technologies to detect it, according to a British researcher.
"We need to
take it (air turbulence) seriously," said Paul Williams, an atmospheric
scientist who has published papers arguing climate change is likely to increase
the amount of high-altitude turbulence.
"I think there is a compelling
case that there's an increase in turbulence and for investment in improving the
detection and prediction of clear air turbulence," he said in a telephone
interview on Tuesday from his office at the University of Reading.
In
Sunday's incident, American Airlines flight 206 was diverted to St. John's, N.L.
Passengers described a lasting bout of turbulence over the Atlantic that
suddenly developed into dips so jarring that people were praying for their
lives.
The incident comes just weeks after air turbulence struck an Air
Canada Boeing 777 flying from China to Toronto, resulting in 21 injuries to
passengers and the launch of a Transportation Safety Board probe.
Last
year, 31 people were injured in air turbulence events, up sharply from the
single incident in 2014 and the 15 cases in 2013, according to Transport
Canada.
Williams co-published a 2013 paper in Nature Climate Change that
used a climate change model to compare a pre-industrial climate with one that
contained double the amount of carbon dioxide, and make predictions on long-term
increases in turbulence events over the North Atlantic.
The scientist
says carbon dioxide is causing a long-term trend towards temperature changes
high in the atmosphere, including at the cruising heights of airliners, and that
is changing wind patterns.
"In scientific terms, there is a wind shear.
Different layers of the atmosphere are meeting at different speeds and there is
a kind of friction and that causes clear air turbulence to break out," said
Williams.
The paper predicts the average strength of trans-Atlantic
turbulence at cruising altitudes could increase by between 10 per cent and 40
per cent, and the amount of airspace likely to contain significant turbulence by
between 40 per cent and 170 per cent.
"Our results suggest that climate
change will lead to bumpier trans-Atlantic flights by the middle of this
century," the paper said.
Williams says many airplanes have technology
that can detect turbulence in clouds, but are less capable of detecting
turbulence in clear, higher skies.
"We need to come up with better
methods for predicting when and where clear air turbulence will strike ... We
can by running computer models come up with areas where there will be
turbulence, but they can be improved," he said.
A spokesman for American
Airlines confirmed Sunday's injuries came after the airplane hit clear air
turbulence.
Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for the airline, said the
seatbelt sign was lit up and the airline is reviewing why the injuries
occurred.
"There are a lot of aircraft that cross the Atlantic and
Pacific each and every day and it's very uncommon this occurs. ... I can't
stress enough that if you're in the seat, fasten your seatbelt especially when
the seatbelt sign is on," he said.
Spokespeople for Air Canada and
WestJet also both emphasized the importance of wearing seatbelts at all
times.
Robert Palmer, the spokesman for WestJet, says "like any
meteorological event, the ability to forecast turbulence accurately 100 per cent
of the time is not an exact science."
However, Williams said new
technologies are emerging that can give people extra time to get their seatbelts
on.
He says a consortium in Europe is using a laser that beams from the
front of the plane and detects patterns of turbulence, allowing time to change
course.
Larry Vance, a consultant with Accident Investigation and
Research Inc. in Ottawa, said that for the time being seatbelts are the key to
injury prevention.
"With technology the way it is now, there's no way
that pilots are equipped to avoid clear air turbulence. It can't be seen so you
fly into it, and you just have to be ready for it," he said.
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