Turbulent Air Canada Flight
sduford on Jan 11 2008 at 8:41 am | Filed under: Aviation
Yesterday an Air Canada flight from Victoria BC to Toronto encountered severe turbulence over the Rockies and had to make an emergency landing in Calgary. 10 people were injured including two flight attendants. There is all kind of speculations on TV this morning including problems with the plane. I think that is extremely unlikely, a control problem would not cause the kind of violent movements described by witnesses.
Given that the west was experiencing strong winds yesterday, and the incident happened near the Rockies, I am 99% sure that it was mountain-wave induced turbulence. That is pretty much the only type of turbulence (outside of a thunderstorm) that can cause this type of violent movements.
I hope this will serve as a lesson to people who do not wear their seatbelt at all time when seated in a plane. You never know when you might hit severe turbulence and hit the ceiling. People have died from such violent incidents.
