Originally Posted by
omkhar
Just after take of the plane violently rolled left, then right. The plane then climbed steeply and appeared to circle back around like it was headed back to ORD.
A few minutes later the pilot came on and announced that we'd been caught in the "wake" of a 747 in front of us (we were a little E175). He'd mentioned that the tower had oked the distance between our planes (clearly not enough!) and he apologised
This happened to me a few years back on an AC flight from YYZ-YYC shortly after takeoff. In that case I was on an A320 and we were not told what type of plane had created the wash, just that we'd flown through it & apologies, etc.
It seems to be a pretty rare occurrence (I flew YYZ-YYC-YYZ weekly on pretty much the same flight for > 8 months back then) but not unheard of. I agree it's very disconcerting to feel the wings dip like that, even as a seasoned traveller... it's funny how we get so used to all of the sounds and motions of commercial air travel - moderate turbulence, missed approaches, etc but as soon as something happens outside the range of experience it's "grab the armrests" time.
