The same American Airlines plane encountered " severe clear air turbulence, " while flying from Barbados to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Boston on Nov . 28, 1994, FAA records show.
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Turbulence associated with thunderstorms is easy to spot, but the main technique for detecting clear air turbulence, the kind that hit the United flight, has always been to fly right into it.
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If it was clear air turbulence, then it is * not * Qantas'fault ( even if it is mechanical failure, even then it may well not be any fault of Qantas or their engineers ! ).
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An airline spokesman at the time said the jet encountered a pocket of clear air turbulence, or turbulence not caused by a storm, although several passengers said the pilot attributed the plunge to a thunder cloud.
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"Icing, clear air turbulence, wind shear are things that make a pilot gray, " said Robert Vandel, executive vice president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va . " This is truly a great system ."
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The problem with flying alone at that altitude _ which American planes would be doing _ is that bad weather is more common, he said, and that there are no planes ahead to warn about clear air turbulence.
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Airlines and aircraft doesn't create it's own clear air turbulence ( Caused by weather nothing else ) which causes it to drop altitude and again the media will just use this when it's not even the fault of the airline.
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Significant weather forecasting problems that occur in the 0-to 12-hr range include severe weather in all seasons ( for example, tornadoes, thunderstorms, snow, and ice storms ) and hazards to aviation ( for example, clear air turbulence, icing, and downbursts ).
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Airline spokesman in Auckland, Jonathan Tudor, told New Zealand Press Association that the plane had taken off from Sydney at 3 : 35 p . m . New Zealand time ( 0335 GMT ) and flew into " clear air turbulence " after about four hours.
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"For years, the No . 1 causal factor for injuries to passengers on commercial airlines has been clear air turbulence, " said Clifford Hay, a program manager at the FAA in charge of one of the new research efforts, which uses lasers as a giant ear to listen for sounds of turbulence.
