Why you shouldn’t sweat it next time your plane hits turbulence

Rudy De Kort / 22 June 2022

The relationship between flying into turbulence and the severe anxiety, experienced by some passengers is self explanatory. Understandably, if you are a traveler with a fear of flying, a bumpy ride is the last thing you need to add to your list of stressors.

Yet, the fact that you made it onto the plane is already an accomplishment to be proud of. Many people with flight anxiety struggle to even book the flight, and are miles away from boarding the plane, let alone live the experience of flying through turbulence!

As a flight paramedic, I used to fly on small air ambulance planes. As an international medical escort my flights are now on large commercial airliners, but the dynamics of flying are the same, regardless of the size of the airplane. I have had my share of bumpy flights, for sure, so if the thought of turbulence gives you a knot in your stomach, I wrote this blog post for you. Hear it from a a professional frequent flyer.

Hopefully I can help you relax a bit on your next flight.

Facts about turbulence: 100,000 safe landings every day

You are never alone when your flight goes through turbulence. At any given moment you can expect close to 10,000 airplanes up in the sky. These planes are criss crossing the globe with thousands of people onboard. Roughly, 100,000 flights take off and land every single day, somewhere in the world. The vast majority of these planes will fly through some degree of turbulence before they land at their destination. And you know what? Every single one of them will be landing safely! If something goes wrong…it is not going to be because of turbulence.

Turbulence and silent panic

Commercial pilots are very proactive when it comes to the safety of all passengers. When turbulence is expected, they’ll tell everyone to return to their seats, fasten their seatbelts and not use the lavatories. Flight attendants are also prompted to return to their stations and sometimes meal services are suspended, either temporarily or all together. The reason is to prevent people from getting hurt, if they are walking up and down the aisle and they loose their balance because of a sudden movement of the aircraft. It’s a standard procedure.

At this point, some passengers in the cabin will likely be feeling anxious. They might be silent, but their palms are definitely getting sweaty, their hearts racing, and their eyes are going back and fort, to gauge the reaction of the flight attendants, and other passengers. For a few it will even get worse than that, triggering a fight-or-flight reaction, and eventually a full blown panic attack.

Air flow is all but smooth

Look at turbulence on a plane the way you look at a boat that breaks through the waves of the ocean.

Air is no different than water in that sense. It’s perfectly natural to have bumpy spots. Actually, tons of them, and more so than in the ocean, because up in the sky you go through different layers of air, at different flight levels!

Air doesn’t necessarily flow smoothly. It moves up and down, in ripples, it changes speed, it changes direction, and this happens all the time, while you are flying. The plane should be moving around like a piece of paper being blown out of the window by the wind. But then came technology and engineering.

Modern airplanes are designed so well that most of the time you won’t even notice all this activity. Commercial aircraft got so stable over time that you can now have a flight so smooth that you fall asleep before the doors close and only wake up because everyone else has already left. You would almost forget that air is not smooth at all, and that turbulence is still a very natural occurance.

The myth of wings breaking off during turbulence

The bumps that occur when the plane starts descending in preparation for landing or if you are flying at a low altitude on a very short flight are to be expected. The closer you get to the ground, the thicker and hotter the air will be. You are going to feel that! It’s normal.

But let’s go back to the boat for a second. As long as you stay out of some sort of bad storm, your boat is made to handle the waves of the ocean without any issues.

The same thing applies to airplanes. They are meant to fly in turbulent air. They are made for it.

The wings are flexible, they can go up and down several meters without ever breaking off. The wings are designed to take incredible stress. Much more than you will ever experience during a commercial flight.

Bad weather and storms

All right, how about bad weather?

Commercial pilots are highly trained to keep everyone onboard safe and comfortable. To start with, they want to keep everyone far away from any storms. Well before you board that plane, the pilots are already somewhere in the airport, preparing the details of your flight. They are looking at the latest weather data that come from all kinds of live sensors and they are choosing the right altitude and the right flight paths to avoid trouble. If needed, they will even delay the flight for weather conditions, until it is safe to take off. That’s not a personal matter of how much risk the pilots are willing to take. Civil aviation is one of the most regulated industries on earth, with very clear standards and conditions on what is considered safe.

Last-minute weather changes

Of course not all bad weather can be predicted. A storm can develop after the plane has already departed. But while in the air, pilots are continuously alert for changes in weather conditions.

When they look outside the cockpit, they know which clouds are the ones that will cause trouble.

If it’s pitch black outside, they are using instruments that alert them of heavy clouds, and they are also talking to air traffic control and to other pilots who are up in the air at the same time. If a pilot sees a thunderstorm on the horizon, every other pilot on the radio will know.

Say that there is bad weather ahead. The pilots can do a few things. A change in altitude for example.

They can also fly away and around the clouds. They can also slow down the airplane, just like you’d slow down your car when you see a pothole in the road.

Clear air turbulence

There is a catch! Turbulence can hit without any warning, with no clouds whatsoever. It’s called “clear air turbulence”, and it can be quite severe too! Yes, I’ve seen videos on YouTube of those horror flights, with oxygen masks dropping from the ceiling, and meal trays full of food on the floor of the aisles.

It even makes the news, because those cases are very, very rare. There are actually numbers of how often it happens. The average airline pilot with lots of experience, hits severe turbulence for about 5 minutes for every 10,000 hours he spends up in the sky. A fulltime commercial pilot spends about 100 hours per month in the air. That means that on average, that pilot will fly for eight years or so, to accumulate 5 minutes of bad turbulence!

Flying over the mountains

Me, I don’t fly as often as a commercial pilot or a flight attendant. Over the years, I have experienced only one incident of turbulence myself that got me scared. It was over 15 years ago, and we were flying over the mountains of the Andes in South America. The day was just perfect and we had just started our descent into the capital of Colombia. The flight attendants were preparing the cabin for landing.

Then the plane suddenly went nose down and every lose item was up in the air, then on the floor! The flight attendants lost their balance and some of the passengers were screaming in horror.

The pilots reacted quickly and leveled the plane again. You could hear the engines roar louder.

Then they found a moment to talk to us. They explained that we had hit a zone of turbulence, and reassured us that nothing bad was going to happen. The whole ordeal didn’t last for longer than 15 seconds. It was a case of clear air turbulence. And yes, it was scary, and for a split of a second I thought that I was going to die in a plane crash. But the truth is that we were never in danger. We were still high up in the air in a safe aircraft, despite the shot of adrenalin that everyone felt.

So clear air turbulence does happen, and it is the reason why you are asked to keep your seatbelts fastened at all times as a precaution when you are flying.

Pick the best seat in the airplane

Now, where is the best place to sit in an airplane? The front of the plane is pretty quiet and stable, but if you are not flying business class, that’s not really helpful, is it? If you are flying Economy, I recommend sitting over the wings. That is the most stable spot. Definitely avoid the back end of the cabin, because the tail of the plane is going to be bouncing up and down the most.

Next time you fly, remember that turbulence is part of the deal, and no matter how bad it gets, you are going to land safely just like the other 99,999 planes that are sharing the same sky that day, somewhere around the globe.

Rudy de Kort is a flight paramedic and the founder of Jet Companion, a Canadian provider of medically trained travel companions.

EVERY MILE WE FLY IS FOR THE PURPOSE OF REUNITING PEOPLE OR BRINGING THEM TO SAFETY