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Turbulence probe picks up with focus on weather

ByNeha Tripathi
May 04, 2022 04:23 AM IST

The Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB), which investigates aircraft accidents and is a division of the ministry of civil aviation, has taken over the probe into Sunday's mishap.

New Delhi: The Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB) on Tuesday took over the probe into severe turbulence on a SpiceJet flight that left 17 people injured, even as experts blamed inclement weather for the incident and called for the investigation to ascertain the crew’s response to it.

On Sunday, the Mumbai-Durgapur SpiceJet flight encountered severe turbulence during its descent phase. (File Photo)
On Sunday, the Mumbai-Durgapur SpiceJet flight encountered severe turbulence during its descent phase. (File Photo)

AAIB is a division of the ministry of civil aviation which investigates aircraft accidents.

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On Sunday, the Mumbai-Durgapur SpiceJet flight encountered severe turbulence during its descent phase, injuring 14 passengers and three cabin crew members. Two of the injured passengers — one with head injury and another with spinal injury — are in intensive care unit (ICU).

 

“The pilot deviated to his left in order to avoid turbulence but did not get alerted about the upcoming issue in his deviated path,” a SpiceJet official said, asking not to be named. The official said that while the two operating pilots acted on the information on the weather pattern in the first instance, they weren’t aware of the air pocket that caused the turbulence after deviating from the path.

When asked why Flight 945 did not divert at the time of the incident, an official SpiceJet statement said the pilots saw turbulent weather patches well in time and made the required course correction to stay away from the weather detected on the radar. “The track that the pilot chose was to keep the aircraft at a safe distance from the turbulent weather seen on the radar,” the airline said.

Dibyendu Nandi, who described himself as a physicist and “space weather guy” on Twitter, contended on the social media platform: “It (the aircraft) flew straight into an intense localised storm, the famous Nor’wester!” Along with this, Nandi posted a flight tracker map of the route the aircraft took and archival data from a weather app that showed bad weather at the time of the flight.

Ian Petchenik, a FlightRadar24 spokesperson, however, said: “Turbulence that is hard to detect is called ‘clear air turbulence’, because it presents without other indicators... Not all turbulence can be forecasted or seen in advance. This incident highlights the necessity of wearing your seatbelt at all times, especially during critical phases of flight.”

There were 195 people, including two pilots and four cabin crew members, on board the Mumbai-Durgapur flight. The plane took off from the Mumbai airport at 5.13pm on Sunday and landed about two-and-a-half hours later.

Also Read | 2 SpiceJet pilots, engineer who cleared aircraft after Durgapur flight, grounded

“Based on historical data for this route, the flight path is not out of the ordinary,” Petchenik said.

A former pilot with a private airline said such systems are not always accurate. “Weather radars are not completely reliable. When there is extremely heavy turbulence, the weather radar shows nothing, this is a well-known flaw... It may be that the weather radar was slightly unreliable, which is not uncommon,” he said, asking not to be named.

Experts said the incident needs to be investigated from all possible angles. Mark D Martin, member of the Royal Aeronautical Society (MRAeS) and founder of aviation safety firm Martin Consulting LLC, said: “We need to get to the bottom of this case and action needs to be taken accordingly.”

India’s aviation regulator DGCA has launched an inspection of the entire SpiceJet aircraft fleet after the incident. It has also taken off the roster the flight’s crew, aircraft maintenance engineer (AME) and incharge of SpiceJet’s maintenance control centre pending a probe. SpiceJet has 91 aircraft in its fleet, according to its website.

Also Read | DGCA to probe turbulence on SpiceJet flight: Scindia

The aircraft that was involved in the incident on Sunday is currently grounded in Kolkata.

Aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has said that DGCA deputed a team to investigate the incident. “The matter is being dealt with utmost seriousness and deftness,” he said.

According to aviation safety expert Mohan Ranganthan, when there are high temperatures going into regions such as West Bengal, one experiences temperature variations between 24,000ft and 14,000ft of altitude. “When this is recognised, one must reduce speed... If the turbulence penetration speed is not maintained, then the pilot should be asked the reason for not doing so,” he said.

Martin said no pilot wilfully enters or plans to remain in turbulence. “Turbulence is something that is beyond the pilot and airline’s control; it is something that the pilots have to fly the aircraft through and mitigate it. It needs to be found if the pilot was briefed that turbulence was expected in the route.”

Also Read | Video captures mid-air panic inside SpiceJet plane amid turbulence

He said it needs to be determined what kind of turbulence the pilots faced. “If this was a ‘wake turbulence’, then ATC should have told the pilot of traffic ahead. Clear air turbulence (CAT)is published in advance hence the airlines’ operations and dispatch teams alert the pilot about it. The third turbulence is due to bad weather. India has three weather satellites, all airline dispatch offices have satellite data with updated weather data and the crew is notified about it and asked to fly in a particular region. Hence, the pilot alone cannot be blamed for the accident.”

Martin said that clear air turbulence is hard to detect on the radar in real time.

Wake turbulence occurs when an airplane passes by another airplane or helicopter and gets caught in the other aircraft’s stream. The bigger the plane, the more severe the turbulence. To avoid this event, aircraft are guided by rules that ask aircraft to maintain a specific distance from another when approaching.

A former DGCA official suggested that a diversion could have avoided the situation. “As per my experience, the pilot should have avoided the weather. During Nor’westers, all these areas see bad weather. They have to deviate 15 to 20 mile back and if the weather is still bad, instead of penetrating into the weather, the pilot should divert.” He asked not to be named.

On being asked if the aircraft’s weather radar may have had issues, SpiceJet said: “The weather radar on this aircraft (a Boeing 737-800) did not have issues. The aircraft had operated four sectors prior to this sector on May 1.”

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