“With climate change occurring, weather is getting more violent – it’s getting more violent outside of traditional time frames,” said Peter Goelz, an airline industry expert, in the wake of a nightmare flight where one passenger died due to extreme turbulence.
Goelz, the former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board, joined Audacy’s KCBS Radio to discuss the tragic incident. In addition to the fatality, 30 passengers were injured on the Singapore Airlines flight from London to Singapore.
“Almost immediately after the turbulence hit, I myself, followed by a large amount of others, were thrown in the air, hitting the roof,” passenger Toby Pearl told Bloomberg News after the aircraft made an emergency landing in Bangkok. “It felt like we had crashed. I thought the plane was going down.”
This week, Bloomberg also reported on research that “suggests severe turbulence in jet streams could double or even triple in coming decades if the climate continues to change as expected.”
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “turbulence is one of the most unpredictable of all the weather phenomena that are of significance to pilots,” and it is caused by irregular motion in the air. It is associated with weather fronts, wind shear, thunderstorms and more.
The Federal Aviation Administration further explained that turbulence could be caused by atmospheric pressure, jet streams and air around mountains. It said turbulence can suddenly jolt aircraft and cause injuries to passengers and flight crewmembers who are not wearing seatbelts.
“You know, the people that are that are most in danger are the flight crew,” said Goelz. “The flight attendants, you know, who are often out of their seats and are… moving large carts around. The carts can weigh over 100 pounds. Flight attendants often, get injured in these kinds of events.”
According to Bloomberg, the exact cause of the turbulence that impacted the fatal Singapore Airlines flight wasn’t clear as of Tuesday. Per National Transportation Safety Board data cited by the outlet, there were 185 serious injuries on 162 global flights involving turbulence for scheduled air carriers between 2009 and 2023.
“Climate change could make severe turbulence a bigger problem in the future,” said the Bloomberg report. “Last year, a study published in Geophysical Research Letters found that turbulence in some parts of the world may already be on the rise.”
In a 2017, study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences “found that a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere could cause light turbulence to increase by roughly 59%, moderate turbulence by 4% and moderate-to-severe turbulence by 127%,” then “a separate 2019 study in Nature found that climate change is already adding to turbulence via an increase in what’s known as the vertical shear in the North Atlantic jet stream,” and just last year, “a study in Geophysical Research Letters used 21 different turbulence calculations to determine whether turbulence got worse between 1979 and 2020.”
Larry Cornman, a physicist studying turbulence with the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research quoted by Bloomberg said “it’s not unreasonable” to believe that climate change is impacting turbulence. However, he did not say it is for certain.
Paul Williams, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Reading who wrote the 2017 study and co-authored the 2019 and 2023 research, is more confident, according to Bloomberg.
“Our latest future projections indicate a doubling or tripling of severe turbulence in the jet streams in the coming decades,” he said, “if the climate continues to change as we expect.”
As for people looking forward to their next trip who might feel a bit cautious about getting on a plane after reading this, experts offer some advice for staying safe.
“You can’t just sit in your seat with your belt unbuckled, because it’s just it can be very dangerous,” Goelz told Audacy. “Particularly when the pilots put the fasten seatbelt sign on – fasten it immediately if it isn’t already fastened.”
The FAA also offers tips for staying safe. Like Goelz, the administration recommends that passengers listen to the fasten seatbelt sign, as well as instructions from the pilot and flight attendants. It also said to pay attention during the in-flight safety demonstration, to use child safety devices when needed and to adhere to carry-on restrictions.