China Air Turbulence Into Bangkok

[Jimjim]

Over the last several years, this has been renowned as one of the most unsafe of Asian airlines. Can you blame severe turbulence on the airline? Happened twice it the last two weeks to them. I'm thinking not but it's yet more bad safety press for their airline.

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China Airlines hit by Turbulence

Taipei (dpa) - A Boeing 747-400 jetliner of Taiwan's major carrier China Airlines was hit by severe air turbulence in Thai airspace as it approached Bangkok from Hong Kong Thursday, resulting in the injury of 21 people, the airlines said.

continued here...

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/b...s.php?id=131068

Edited October 2, 2008 by Jimjim

[bkkjames]

IMO, news like this hurts an airline like the afforementioned more than say an SQ, Cathay etc.

Public Perception: More negative news about China Airlines only adds to its reputation even though in this case it's not really their fault. The headline - China Air - 21 Injured sticks in the mind.

If it was SQ or Cathay: like it or not, most people will overlook this incident because of their track records of not turning planes upside down on the runway in HK.

"wow if it happend to SQ or CX, the turbulance must have been bad!"

[nonthaburial]

Unfair to place the blame for CAT on the airline, it happens regularly and can be lethal. Sadly for CI this is not their first encounter as has been mentioned, however more than a few years ago the same airline on the same route had the same problem and if my memory serves me right, there was a fatality.

as a frequent flyer I would tend to place the blame more on the cultural attitudes of groups such as the Chinese, they take no notice of advice from cabin crew about wearing seat belts whilst in flight and If I had a Baht for every incident I have seen of people standing and getting overhead locker luggage out when the aircraft is flaring on landing, I would be very rich

[pampal]

air turbulence cannot be blamed on an airline, weather is a natural phenomenon, people should always have their seat belts buckled and be ready for turbulence

CI flies in a typhoon rich area(Taiwan-HKG) so they see more than their fair share of these things

[Jimjim]

Yes, but when there is a typhoon, they fly around that sucker.

[lomatopo]

Injuries from turbulence are typcially the cause of lax enforcement of the seat-belt sign. Once an airline suffers from injuries/fatalities (see UA 826) then they start to get more strict. Additionally pilots can request deviations for weather and these are usually granted by ATC. Bangkok ATC (quite a few female controllers BTW) seems accomodating on this matter based on my listening in on all flights into BKK. Clear air turbulence is obviously a different matter. The most violent turbulence I have ever experienced was on an SQ flight into NRT; anything not nailed down was flying around the cabin. Both flight attendants and passengers were out of their seats even though the seat belt sign was on. Several people sustained injuries.

Last week on BKK-NRT we had to fly directly east to MNL, then up to NRT to avoid a typhoon.

[expatgaz]

I flew (not me flying,I was a passanger) THROUGH a serious thunder storm on a dash 8 once as it was to big to go round.It was a complete nitemare.What should have been a 1 hr flight ended up at just over 2 hours of being thrown around terrible.The flight infront of ours emergency landed on the runway which didn't help.People screaming and praying and luggage from the overhead bins flying everywhere.On landing even the pilots where visably shaken.That was an internal Nigerian flight on a private plane flew by Dutch Pilots.Iam 100% certain is was only the extreme brilliance of the pilots that got us through it that day.

Other rough flights include BKK to Manila,Hong Kong etc but they pale into insignificance in comparison.

EPG.

[Jimjim]

Yes I've heard there's always a rough patch you hit somewhere between BKK and Manila. The worst turbulence I had was flying over Iceland from London to San Francisco. Lot of crazy winds in the atmosphere around Iceland.

[wileycoyote]

After this ,surely they will tighten up their safety record ?

[Krub]

Yes, but when there is a typhoon, they fly around that sucker.

Not CI or EVA for that matter

Last typhoon to hit Taiwan on 28 September.......CI and EVA both flew 2 planes from Tokyo into Taipei while Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Cathay all cancelled their flights the whole day......

[think_too_mut]

Yes, but when there is a typhoon, they fly around that sucker.

Not CI or EVA for that matter

Last typhoon to hit Taiwan on 28 September.......CI and EVA both flew 2 planes from Tokyo into Taipei while Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Cathay all cancelled their flights the whole day......

On an ANA flight BKK-NRT once (myself onboard) they went out of their way and flew over Manila. An usual 6 hours flight took close to 8 hours - just to bypass the typhoon and turbulence around Taiwan.