Planes flying into shit storms

[flybyinalowride]

On s

Er, howso?

nats.aero/blog/2024/01/storm-isha-air-traffic-control/

A post from air traffic control which explains some of the thought processes.

I suppose to a certain extent if you have been following the weather forecast at your destination you will have some awareness that the flight is likely to be difficult and possibly involve a re-route to another airport .

I also suppose that thresholds in respect of acceptable flying conditions are different for experienced air crew and for a nervous passenger .

I'm not sure at what point I would decide to not take a flight and book to another day as sometimes it can appear to be a bad forecast but then in reality the storm misses your area or it's just a bit more bumpy than usual.

Im so scared of flying but this comment makes so much sense to me

Something I read which always helps me is , ' just because something is scary, doesn't mean it's dangerous' guess it's true x

I have been flying since I was 4 months old and I'm mid fifties now. I have flown in all sorts of planes, small, large, jets, props, short, mid and long haul, in all weathers and I have only had two weather incidents in all that time.

Once when planes were grounded as a storm overhead meant nothing could be refuelled, so we had a couple of hours delay whilst the storm moved off.

The second time was a go around coming in to Tenerife, it was good weather, but a gust of wind caught the plane just as we were about to touch down. The plane landed successfully on the next attempt.

Thanks for that, its very reassuring.

The captain makes ALL the decisions.

Yep, it's the Captain that decides whether they take off or not.

The second time was a go around coming in to Tenerife, it was good weather, but a gust of wind caught the plane just as we were about to touch down. The plane landed successfully on the next attempt.
This would be what pilots call an 'unstablised approach', and the procedure to follow is a go-around. The pilot will increase the throttle to produce the same amount of power as a take-off, but as they're not starting from idle it doesn't take long to execute.

A plane defies all logic, therefore it is no more illogical to take off in gale force winds then it is on a dry sunny day.
Lol, no it's not. It's very logical. It's lift vs weight and thrust vs drag.

I can't remember why this happened, but there was a non-injurious incident a number of years ago where a long-haul pilot had to do a go around due to wind shear (a bit like a huge gust that will unstabilise the plane). It's far more uncommon for long haul pilots to execute go-arounds due to the nature of their flights. A short-haul pilot may have 3 flights in a day, but long-haul will have one every few days, so the chances of having to perform a go-around is far lower. Anyway, something happened with this incident. I can't remember exactly what; maybe they didn't select the correct throttle setting or similar, but the incident was reported to the airline company. Off the back of this, they now train long-haul pilots how to do go-arounds on a six-monthly basis.

That's the wonderful thing about aviation. If something happens, even if nobody gets hurt, it will be reported and changes will be made off the back of it. That's why air travel is so safe today compared to how it was in the 70s and 80s when planes would seemingly crash left, right and centre. Small incidents are never ignored. In aviation we learn from our mistakes. It's a wonderful thing!

Hope that helps. Doesn't make flying any less scary for those who don't like flying, but I think knowledge is power 💪