Video from inside A320 cabin as plane flies through severe thunderstorm.
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Most of us try to go around thunderstorms…
wwillson
Staff member
Many pilots have thunderstorm stories. I have one and it put the fear of thunderstorms into me, permanently. Go around the storm or land and wait. You bet your life I wish I would have just landed and found a hotel room. It was severe clear the next day.
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I was flying to LAS and close to the same line of weather
4WD
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Yup - turbo thunder bronc STOL ride in W Africa - first time I knew lightning actually had some diameter 😳
Watch the video. Pilot declared an emergency and had no choice but to land.
I left Detroit in a pretty respectable early morning thunderstorm one time, one that we expected to be delayed. Once we boarded and they started to push back the pilot came on the intercom and said if we didn’t leave immediately we’d be delayed for potentially a few hours until weather improved. He said that it was going to be rough and he was taking off fast and steep to climb past it. The first 10 minutes were absolutely miserable but once we were above it it was a normal flight. That’s the only turbulence I’ve ever seen the overhead bins come open and stuff falling out. Much kudos to the pilot for letting us know beforehand that the takeoff was going to suck.
I watched it.
He had a choice - avoid the thunderstorm.
Once he hit it, yeah, then he had no choice.
He declared the emergency AFTER he flew through a thunderstorm.
The point is to avoid them in the first place. This wouldn’t be the first crew suckered in by a radar shadow, but it’s fundamentally a pilot error.
For those of you not familiar with weather radar operation, here’s an article, or two, on shadowing.
safetyfirst.airbus.com
Optimum use of weather radar | Safety First
In recent years, there have been a number of flights where passengers or crew suffered injuries due to severe turbulence. In some other instances, the aircraft structure was substantially damaged following a hailstorm encounter. Clearly adverse weather can pose a threat to the safe and...
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It’s very interesting to watch different levels of experience/wisdom navigate thunderstorms in the enroute ATC environment, even from an airline standpoint. Some are willing to chance a hole, others have no interest regardless of what the previous aircraft do. I’d love to be a fly on the wall for some of these flight deck conversations. Dare I say I see way too many regional carriers who fly through stuff that the mainlines won’t get within 50 miles of.
There was nasty one of these incidents by a Delta A320 over Nebraska a few years back.
wwillson
Staff member
Good judgement is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement.
I see it all the time. When a “Brickyard“ or other RJ call sign takes a turn to avoid, I listen out of curiosity, but I’ve seen them make terrible decisions.
e.g. Big cell, clear rain shaft, ugly radar return* approaching the field in Orlando. As it gets near the approach end of our departure runway, Tower clears a Delta for takeoff.
They decline.
Tower then clears the American behind him.
They decline.
Tower then clears the Southwest behind American.
They decline.
Tower then clears us.
We decline.
Tower clears the Continental Express behind us.
They accept takeoff clearance, and back taxi down the runway to get in position.
As they do, a deep, anonymous voice says, “good luck…”
As they take off, the rain shaft has reached the end of the runway from which they’re rolling.
They roll for an unusually long distance, and climb at a very shallow, slow rate. They didn’t fess up to being hammered by a big tailwind from a microburst, but I’d bet my next paycheck that’s what happened.
Every experienced pilot looked at the approaching cell, saw the potential for a microburst and did the prudent thing by delaying the takeoff.
But the RJ guys were excited to taxi past the “big boys” and go.
Fools.
*The radar gradient can tell you a lot about a cell. When it’s steep, when it goes from green to yellow to red over a very short distance that cell is dangerous. It’s developing quickly and has a lot of updraft, which means it will soon have a lot of downdraft, often in the form of a microburst. Microbursts are often fatal. The clearly defined rain shaft speaks to a big downdraft inside a rapidly building cell. Not good.
wwillson
Staff member
Takeoffs are always optional, everything that happens after the decision to takeoff is mandatory. I would rather be on the ground wishing I was flying than flying and wishing I was on the ground.
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Orlando is the only airport I have seen a “ microburst advisory” on the ATIS.
whnt.com
30 years ago today: Delta Flight 191 downed by microburst at Dallas-Fort Worth airport; 137 killed
DALLAS– The Delta Air Lines Flight 191 airplane crash at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) occurred around 6:05 p.m. CDT on August 2, 1985. The National Transportation Safety Board’s (N…
whnt.com
Sounds analogous to trying to best a winter storm on a mountain pass with whatever tyres came on the car...
Denver (DIA) has a very sophisticated microburst measuring and alerting system. I'm certain there are more, but those two, given their size and weather, should certainly have the system...Orlando is the only airport I have seen a “ microburst advisory” on the ATIS.
30 years ago today: Delta Flight 191 downed by microburst at Dallas-Fort Worth airport; 137 killed
DALLAS– The Delta Air Lines Flight 191 airplane crash at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) occurred around 6:05 p.m. CDT on August 2, 1985. The National Transportation Safety Board’s (N…
