Experts discuss cause of severe turbulence onboard Singapore Airlines flight

Turbulence is common on flights, but it's rare for it to be so severe that people are seriously injured. So how and why does it happen?

Transcript

00:00 What SQ321 experienced was the second highest category of turbulence.

00:07 Severe turbulence results in large, abrupt changes in altitude and the aircraft may momentarily

00:12 be out of control.

00:14 The next level, extreme, can lead to structural damage.

00:19 There are two types of turbulence, clear air, which experts say can be difficult to predict.

00:24 That can occur around thunderstorms and some of our studies have shown that thunderstorms

00:32 can generate turbulence up to 100km away from them in the clear air.

00:36 The other type is convective, which is associated directly with thunderstorms.

00:41 Singapore Airlines hasn't said which kind its flight experienced, but we do know the

00:46 plane flew into what's known as the intertropical convergence zone, where the north and south

00:52 trade winds collide, making thunderstorms common high up in the atmosphere.

00:57 This is what the area looked like at the time of the incident.

01:00 A lot of cloud cover and storm activity.

01:04 While turbulence itself is fairly common, experts stress incidents this severe are very

01:10 rare.

01:11 In my 15,000 hours of flying experience, I've encountered severe turbulence just once.

01:16 Turbulence can't always be avoided, so it's best to buckle up whenever you're in the air.

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