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How to Protect Yourself When Turbulence Hits

Even after the Singapore Airlines incident, commercial flying is still the safest form of travel

rows of passengers on an airplane
Keeping your seat belt fastened is the best defense against injury when there is turbulence.
Getty Images
By

Adam Pitluk,

 
AARP
Published March 08, 2023
/ Updated May 22, 2024

Let’s start with words of reassurance: Commercial aviation is the safest form of public mass transit in the world.

It’s important to establish that point from the outset, in light of a Singapore Airlines flight this week that hit severe turbulence and tossed passengers and crew around the cabin. One person died and dozens of others were injured.

On Tuesday, the Boeing 777 flight from London to Singapore hit severe turbulence over the Adaman Sea, forcing the plane to be diverted to Bangkok. A 73-year-old British man died. The plane carried 211 passengers and 18 crew members.

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Aviation experts arrived in Bangkok on Wednesday to begin the investigation into why the plane went into a dive, descending 6,000 feet in about three minutes, according to the airline. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is also sending an accredited representative and four technical advisers to support the investigation because the incident involved a Boeing plane, said Singapore Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat.

This occurrence of turbulence follows an incident in March 2023. On March 1, 2023, actor Matthew McConaughey and his wife, Camila Alves McConaughey, were on a Lufthansa flight from Austin, Texas, to Frankfurt, Germany, when the Airbus A330 encountered “severe turbulence” that forced the plane to divert to Dulles International Airport in Virginia. Seven people were injured. In December 2022, 25 people were injured when a Hawaiian Airlines flight from Phoenix to Honolulu encountered clear-air turbulence.

Although because of recent media reports it may seem like cases of extreme turbulence are occurring more frequently, pilots say their experiences in the skies do not point to stepped-up encounters. From 2009 to 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported 163 serious turbulence injuries. Two pilots who spoke to AARP indicated that although turbulence is scary, there is virtually no likelihood of it being the cause of a plane crash, and that clear-air turbulence is, was and always will be a part of flying.

Capt. Timothy Raynor is a 787 check pilot for American Airlines. He says that in the more than 35 years he’s been flying (including as an F-18 pilot in the Marine Corps), he’s encountered turbulence of all three classifications — light, moderate and severe — yet he has no concerns about the effect of any of them on his aircraft.

“As pilots, we try to avoid encounters with turbulence at all costs, but oftentimes it is an inevitability,” says Raynor. “The key to dealing with turbulence is to give your crew and your passengers a heads-up — as much of a heads-up as possible — especially to your crew, so that if the encounter is severe, they can communicate to the passengers while we aviate.”

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Clear-air turbulence makes it a little more difficult to give passengers a preemptive warning, because it’s harder to detect. “But we communicate consistently with air traffic control and receive reports if clear-air turbulence is encountered by other pilots,” Raynor says.

Clear-air turbulence (CAT) is distinguished from traditional convective turbulence (the kind caused by clouds and weather systems) in that pilots cannot see it, and radar — for the most part — cannot detect it. Scientifically speaking, according to SKYbrary, an electronic repository of flight safety information put out by global air traffic controllers with FAA approval, CAT occurs at high altitudes and is caused by a disruption of smooth horizontal airflow into the jet engines or by vertical currents of air hitting the plane in unstable atmosphere.

“The first thing I do as a captain is to turn on the seat belt sign,” Raynor says. “Then I pick up my intercommunications system and speak to my purser and tell them to prepare for certain types of turbulence, depending on what kind air traffic control is reporting.”

Raynor and other pilots have experienced enough cases of CAT to know that once it starts, you don’t necessarily know how severe it might become. As such, it’s better to hope for the least severe but prepare for the most. It’s a sentiment reiterated by a former Air Force and current airline pilot.

Col. Sam Joplin, a 23-year veteran of the Air Force who now flies for a major cargo carrier, says that while pilots can account for and prepare for most types of convective turbulence, clear-air turbulence sneaks up on pilots without any warning.

“Clear-air turbulence isn’t necessarily associated with visible weather,” says Joplin, who flies international flights two times per month. “Still, clear-air turbulence can happen out of the clear blue, and pilots and crews react accordingly.”

Joplin and Raynor offer these tips in the event that clear-air turbulence goes from light to severe.

Keep your seat belt fastened.

“It sounds cliché and you’ve heard it a thousand times before,” Joplin says, “but it really is your best defense against injury.” To wit, the FAA requires that seat belts must be fastened during takeoff and landing, and whenever the pilot illuminates the “fasten seat belt” sign. Joplin says that most turbulence-related injuries are to passengers who were not strapped in when clear-air turbulence occurred and were therefore violently thrown across the cabin or into the ceiling. Major injuries also can occur when passengers who are not wearing their seat belts are thrown into or on top of those who are.

“A good rule of thumb: If you hear me tell you to take your seat and buckle up, and if you hear me instruct the flight crew to take their seats, suspend in-cabin services and buckle up, it’s a good idea to listen,” Raynor says. “It means we’ve been alerted to some encounters of turbulence, and we’re trying to prepare you for it.”

Make sure all your personal belongings and luggage are secured.

Passengers also can be injured when the beverage cart is out and luggage and drinks are unsecured. In that instance, aluminum cans and laptops can become projectiles.

Avoid panicking. 

Joplin encourages passengers to practice diaphragmatic breathing. He points to the University of Michigan health department’s recommendation to inhale through your nose for four seconds, hold for two seconds, then exhale out of your mouth for six seconds.

Although turbulence can be jarring, keep in mind that pilots train for every kind of weather phenomenon. In addition, the aircraft have been tested to withstand 1.5 times the force on their frames, according to Executive Flyers, a trusted source of information for civil, commercial and military aviation.

“I know it’s scary when the plane is shaking while you’re 35,000 feet in the air,” Joplin says. “Just keep in mind that your pilot is not concerned, so you shouldn’t be either.”

Editor's note: This article was originally published on March 8, 2023. It has been updated to reflect new information.

Contributing: Associated Press

Adam Pitluk is an award-winning journalist and book author. He is the group publisher of Midwest Luxury Publishing and Groom Lake Media. 

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