Bumpy Ride Lately?
 

Just got back from LGW. Pretty good turbulence each way, more than I've seen in a while and for relatively long periods of time. Didn't think much of it until I spoke directly with the captain who apologized for the bumpy ride. He said that they are now being directed by NWA to take the shortest, most direct routing regardless of weather and turbulence in order to save fuel costs. Safety be damned. So take your dramamine before you board a long flight if you're a queasy flyer, you're gonna need it! :rolleyes:

The same thing for me MSP-MEM last Sunday!

It was very bumpy all over UK & Ireland on NW49 from CDG to DTW on 1/9.

Did HNL-LAX-MEM Tuesday-Wednesday. Getting from LAX-MEM was incredibly bumpy. Geez!

if this were true (besides MarcoPolo, do we have another NWA person who can confirm it?), this would surely be bad press if any reporter picked up on the story.

I wonder if unionized pilots would (quietly) go along with a directive like this.

I would STRONGLY disagree with this statement. We have never been told to fly into turbulence that would be considered hazardous. I'll also state that 100% of the Captains I've flown with would be unwilling to risk taking a shortcut and possibly injuring someone on their flight.

We take turbulence VERY seriously. There are those days however where the turbulence is so widespread that you have no choice but to fly through areas of known turbulence.

On my last flight, ATC reported turbulence as moderate from Flight Level 330 to 410. We were filed at 390 and started to pick it up. We descended to 290 and it was relatively smooth. Then Wham! We got nailed by some moderate turbulence, which injured one of the flight attendants. Unfortunately, just one of those things. To everyone in back though they probably figured we just plowed on ahead through it, when in fact we had been very proactive and taken a large descent to avoid it.

I'll stand up and say that I strongly disagree with the assertion that we're intentionally flying through areas of turbulence to save money.

Disagree all you want. You weren't there. Doesn't change the fact that I am merely relating what I was told. Of course, NWA would never confirm this even if true. (You're not management, are you?)

I beleive 100% you were told this. However I cant believe even NWA management would want this......even if they did I doubt that they would memo it....or even verbalize it to the pilots. This pilot was probably either kidding or wanting management to look bad.

bumpy ride from NRT - PDX

Techy question it would seem to me that if you can find some smooth air, fuel consumption should be less because you can fly with the engines operating under steady state conditions and laminar air flow over/under the wings etc-- compared to being bounced all over the sky.

To say nothing of long term wear and tear on the plane.

My baseline (any pun intended) is driving on roads with loads of potholes.

Aim I on the right track on this one?

Bob H

This is definitely an interesting debate. I would imagine the crew on airliners.net would be able to answer this type of question in a heartbeat.

I am split on this one.

-Why would a professional pilot (and they all seem to be well versed in public relations) ever state that to a passenger - even if it were true.

-Turbulence alone has never brought a plane down - therefore the only safety issue is for pax who don't heed the seatbelt sign and unfortunately the FAs - therefore maybe it could be a directive.

I've still got to believe that he was pulling your leg.

Dunno. When in turbulence, you can watch the airspeed go down 5 knots, then go right back up to 5 above the target speed. Sometimes the engines will chase it, sometimes they'll stay steady and accept the minor airspeed fluctuations. +5 and -5 over time ends up averaging out to target, so....who knows.

When we get into the bumps, we'll often 'speed intervene' and dial the mach number down a notch or two. We often cruise at Mach .80, and will drop it to .78 or so while in the bumpy air. If we dial it down rapidly, you'll hear a big spool down in the engines in the back. If we do it s l o w , you'll not notice it.

One could argue, in the pothole example, that the decrease in drag and associated acceleration as you fell into the pothole, would be exactly offset by the increase in drag and associated deceleration as you climb out of it. Overall effect would be zero.....but then again I'm just a stupid Business major. :cool:

NWA likely issued a directive, but the pilot badly misinterpreted it. NWA has an industry-leading initiative for turbulence avoidance, but probably directed the pilots to take the shortest routes anyways provided it does not take the aircraft into areas of known or suspected severe/extreme turbulence. Safety would not be at all compromised by such a directive, and the captain should be reprimanded by both the company and the union if s/he made such a statement to the passengers.

O concur
 

[QUOTE=doobierw]I would STRONGLY disagree with this statement. We have never been told to fly into turbulence that would be considered hazardous. I'll also state that 100% of the Captains I've flown with would be unwilling to risk taking a shortcut and possibly injuring someone on their flight.

We take turbulence VERY seriously. There are those days however where the turbulence is so widespread that you have no choice but to fly through areas of known turbulence.QUOTE]

First, my cousin is a pilot for American and he laughed at the mere suggestion.

Second, think of the litigation! If anything would sink NW permanently, it would be lawsuits claiming management ordered pilots to take risks to save fuel.

MSP-LAX early this week. The pilot came on with the route info and specifically said we were going a little futher north to avoid turbulance.
PS it was a nice flight

That was the case on NW49 from CDG to DTW on 1/9 too. I was quite surprised how informative they were about the whole thing. Like "we contacted the company and they suggested that the turbulance will be over once we pass Ireland" - OK, I do not remember the exact wording, but this was close enough.

Also "we will take a more northerly route and pass over the southern part of Greenland" - so, I got lucky and took some great pics! :)

I find this really hard to believe. In extreme cases planes have had to divert & offload people to ambulances due to turbulance. It makes no sense that NW would implement such a policy.

Yeah, I was on the early morning edition of that flight and it was a dooooozy!

Well hopefully this won't be the case in 2 weeks when I fly out on NW 69. I don't think I have ever encountered any serious prolonged turbulence on this one (knock on wood).

I should hope that fuel costs are not getting into Northwest's mind that they would compromise passenger's safety. That's bordering on complete irresponsibility.

First off, I'm not a passenger, I'm flight crew. I sat strapped in at door 4 on a A330 for an hour and half in crappy weather that we could have supposedly avoided if we had taken a different (longer) routing. These are the facts. I could tell you stories for days of what I've observed in the last few months. I almost threw my purser wings and ID badge at a manager in Tokyo last week and walked off the job for the insidious crap they were pulling. I'm glad I'm off for the next month because they are taking cost-cutting to extremes that I am starting to question strongly. And if you think I am just another disgruntled employee.....WRONG! I will be forced to quit this year regardless because of the success of my own business. I've tasted what it's like working for myself and I LIKE IT!

Deep breath, buddy. It's just an airline. We're not curing cancer here.

There is a huge difference between discomfort from turbulence and extreme turbulence which can violently shake the plane, injure pax & crew, etc.

I think most of us would safely say that NW never told anyone to fly through strong to severe turbulence. Would the FAA even allow them to fly anymore?

I could easily see NW telling pilots to fly more direct of the turbulence is light to moderate to save on fuel. It makes sense. It's a slight discomfort for the pax but the airline saves a lot of money. Now, will pax come back to an airline that is always bumpy? That's to be debated.

I think too many ppl on this board are taking the pilots comment (whether true or not) to the extreme.

FYI...I flew EWR-SEA (on CO) just after XMas and we were way up in Canada for the flight. Took longer than normal. My point: the weather pattern right now is turbulent probably throughout the northern hemisphere. I also suspect flights eastbound (Transpacific/Transatlantic) are taking less time than normal because the winds are so strong. Likewise, westbound flights are taking longer than normal.

Everyone remain calm...NW is not likely to fly right into a patch of severe turbulence to save $1,000 on fuel.

-RM

For the record, I never mentioned anything about severe turbulence. It was worked into the conversation by others. Point is, we could have taken a different routing to avoid the weather we encountered but were directed not to in order to save fuel.

Turbulence is a killer...
 

Oh yes it has...in a big and nasty way. For example, BOAC B707 dep HND in 1966 flying over Mt.Fuji.

PROBABLE CAUSE: "The aircraft suddenly encountered abnormally severe turbulence over Gotemba City which imposed a gust load considerably in excess of the design limit."

http://aviation-safety.net/database/...?id=19660305-1

A camera was recovered from the wreckage and forensically examined. The shutter was frozen open in a way that did not indicate a ground impact cause. Tests on the camera type revealed that a load in excess of 5g was required to do this.

NWA pilots: I know you guys work hard to avoid turbulence and I can assure you I know this and I'm grateful. While I know structural failure is unlikely, even moderate turbulence causes discomfort and increases my fatigue enormously.

My translant and HI MRs last week were relatively smooth, at least on the redtail and AF. Not so on my AA reroute LAX to HNL.

RTS

My husband works for the FAA. Years ago at a meeting with NW executives they explained that NW files some unique routings based on things such as the day's weather forecasts (which can and do frequently change) as a condition of getting a reduced rate from their airframe insurance company. This decision to fly unusual, in-direct routings was largely based on money.

In recent times, NW has been filing routes far more similar than what the other carriers fly. Certianly at some point the cost of fuel out weighs any savings from insurance.

From what my husband's seen the new routes are in no way a decision to compromise customer safety. It's been turbulent lately. When NW gets turbulence reports, they still take care to try to get other routings or different altitudes to find smoother air. Sometimes there is no smoother air, and you're stuck with it. I really don't believe NW has made a decision to in any way jeopardize passenger safety, nor does the route filings and comments my husband sees indicate that.

I like a bit of turbulence. Do you know what people pay for Disney? And their rides are like two minutes.

I wonder what we'd find if we conducted an experiment to correlate liking of turbulence with experience of severe or extreme turbulence? Not pax-defined "severe," which we all know is a strongly overestimated category, but the FAA's working definition of severe:

"Light: Causes slight, erratic changes in altitude and/or attitude, and rhythmic bumpiness as occupants feel a slight strain against seat belts.

Moderate: Similar to light, but of greater intensity, with rapid bumps or jolts, and occupants feel a slight strain against seat belts.

Severe: Turbulence that causes large, abrupt changes in altitude and attitude, and large variations in airspeed, with the aircraft temporarily out of control. Occupants are forced violently against their seat belts and objects are tossed about, with food service and walking impossible.

Extreme: The aircraft is tossed about so violently that it is practically impossible to control, and structural damage may occur."

I believe that I've only twice encountered what the FAA defines as "severe" turbulence when the machine was clearly out of the pilot's control in one or more axes. I have no wish to experience it a third time, far less to gain first hand experience with the "extreme" classification. AlphaGolf, I don't think this was what you meant by a "bit" of turbulence. I hope not; this type of encounter isn't "Disney" or fun, not when people are being thrown violently into the roof then flung down against the floor and seats and their bones are breaking against the seat armrests and floor mounts.

Interestingly, the following article implies that the airlines can be held liable for results of encounters with FAA-defined "severe" or "extreme" turbulence.

"Injury caused by light or moderate turbulence not actionable under Warsaw Convention" at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...06/ai_n9086580

RTS

IF there is any directive at all (I still doubt this), it probably states that pilots should continue in light or moderate turbulence rather than making a large, fuel-expensive deviation.

Under no circumstances would a pilot intentionally fly into or stay in severe or extreme turbulence.

Light and moderate turbulence are not a safety concern. There is nothing wrong with the purported "policy" from an FAA safety standpoint.

I had a tour of the Systems Operations Center (S.O.C.) & met with the Meteorology Mgr
 

In October I attended meetings along with TheZipper in Eagan and MSP and we were given a tour of the Systems Operations Center (S.O.C.) at building F in Bloomington. The Planning Dispatcher showed us how they schedule and track every NWA aircraft that is on the schedule and/or flying. We actually looked at the ship numbers of the planes and the full schedule and then met with the Meteorology Manager.

The Meteorology Department has 22 professional meteorologists, they are all highly skilled experts, and we saw how the meteorologists along with the dispatchers rerouted aircraft to avoid turbulence and the wear and tear involved when an a/c flys through it. There is very specialized software used to minimize the turbulence we experience as pax in NW aircraft.

Also 11 other ailines subcontract with NW to take avantage of Northwest's leadership in Meteorolgy and turbulence avoidance.

I find it unlikely that NW directs the pilots to fly into high altitude turbulence, perhaps when an entire region is affected by high altitude turbulence there is going to be level one or level two turbulence at any altitude. Maybe that is not severe enough to detour around it or cancel the flight.

RC

Throughout all this talk of turbulence, the one thing is definitively clear:

ALWAYS WEAR YOUR SEATBELT! :D

Shortcuts, unforeseen weather phenomenom, who knows what at 30K+ feet. Even if the belt is worn loose, it'll be better than being bounced around at some unsuspecting moment. I never understood why people would take the belt off just because the captain turns off the seat belt sign.

And I guess it would be one of the "E" ticket rides :p

It was code four. Quite a ride in the rear.

i believe i was sitting in 2a on that flight :)

last sunday?

yesterday i connected in MEM-DTW on the 2:45pm flight.

~30 min from detroit the plane violently started to shake and we must have dropped 10000 feet in under a minute. we were going down fast to avoid something.

We had some pretty heavy rain out here that day (1/13), particularly in the afternoon.

Bob H

Well, I am new to this forum, and I don't think any airline would compromise the safety of passengers and their own lives to cut some costs. I am not saying that the crewmember is lying, just saying he may have misunderstood??? Anyhow, I just returned from a trip to FAI and on the way up, went from SEA-ANC-FAI. WOW, the turbulence was horrible at the end of SEA-ANC. Though it may not have been severe, I watched several passengers around us, and some FA closing their eyes and holding on to seats. I know ANC area is known for turbulence, but it's the first time I have ever been scared on a plane. We plunged down several times, seemed to fly up very high and unsteady for very long periods, and seemed to move all over the place! Even so, we had some wonderful pilots. At the landing, I even think we slid a little (probably due to ice or snow), but they did a fine job. When we got off the plane, they did say they were sorry for the bumps, but I was just happy to be on the ground, and thankful these pilots handled the situation so well! They looked kind of relieved themselves! Like I said, I can't see them trying to save some money and putting themselves through that kind of experience for that purpose.

You should hang around with me for the weekend :eek: :D

ANC is well known for this, especially at mid-levels departing S. down Turnagain Arm. There have been a number of severe turbulence-related events over the years: for example, here's an engine separation on a 741:

http://dnausers.d-n-a.net/dnetGOjg/310393.htm

This is one reason (among others) that I'm not anxious to visit ANC during the winter. But I couldn't route my recent MR in the preferable southwesterly direction outbound...so, nevertheless I flew SEA-ANC last Friday evening on AS and it really wasn't bad. Nothing more than moderate chop during the descent. Sat morning we departed N. from ANC to avoid the activity over Turnagain Arm.

RTS

Cool link RTS. My favorite line is:

DEP-1 "Japan Air four six Echo heavy ah, Elmendorf tower said that
something large just fell off your airplane."

Boy, those are words no one airborne ever wants to hear!

Near the end of January I had the worse airplane ride in my life, PHL-IAH. I have been traveling for over 20 years and am myself a pilot and this flight gave me the willies. It was so bad (trying to punch through a severe line of storms) that people were puking all over in the back of the plane. We diverted to CRP and people in hazmat-like suits and medical waste bags came on to clean up.

I was so rattled I got up and left the plane and said no way was I going back up through that line after we refueled. Not a single person of CO, either at the airport or with reservations, gave me one bit of grief when I asked for reaccomodation the next day for my flights onward to OKC.