Hi,

Once flew an Emirates 777 ER200 to Hong Kong. Now Hong Kong is known for having typhoons (well, basically at a certain time of year the South China Sea is typhoon infested).

It happened that the day we were arriving, there was a typhoon alert and all planes were being diverted, except ours coz it was a Heavy and the pilot was experienced enough to land in that weather. I have never been tossed that bad in a plane. People threw up and all sorts of stuff happened. But we landed safely. You should have heard guys cheer for the pilot.

What I liked is that the cabin crew kept talking to us throughout the whole ordeal and informed us that if we sense power being increased then the pilot would have considered it unsafe to land and he would fly on to the next closest airport.

Now on the ground, everything was shut down. I had a hard time getting a taxi as the typhoon alert means everyone goes home and battens down. There were no hotel rooms available, except a pent house suite (which I got authorisation from my boss to use), and so it was pretty good, but spent a pretty penny at the company's expense.

All in all, I always take my hat off to those pilots. I have traveled quite a bit and had a good share of hair raising flights, but I must say, I still have full confidence in the aviation industry.

Regards,

======================
Andrew Wafula Wapakala
Web: www.wertsoft.com
MSN: a_wafula@hotmail.com
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/awafula
Blog: http://thewert.blogspot.com/
==========================================================================
If you have made mistakes...there is always another chance for you... you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down. - Mary Pickford
"Great Minds Discuss Ideas; Average Minds Discuss Events; Small Minds Discuss People"


On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 9:53 PM, Barrack Otieno <otieno.barrack@gmail.com> wrote:
Hey Skunks where do you learn all this,  Very educative


On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 9:48 PM, Gituma Nturibi <gnturibi@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi people
turbulence can down a plane depending on how bad it is. Mich mentioned
the ITCZ and severe thunderstorms that occur there. At the equator the
clouds can go up to as high as 50,000 feet so even flying over is not
an option. A cardinal rule for pilots is DO NOT FLY into a
thunderstorm and if they really must they navigate through the regions
with less turbulence. The weather radar in the cockpit of modern
airliners highlights the trouble spots and it's his/her job to use
that info to avoid it.

I once read of a guy who had a change in altitude of 20,000 feet when
flying through a storm- pretty hectic and fortunate to have lived to
tell the tale. Small planes can simply disintegrate due to the
stresses on the structure.

Given we don't know the whole story yet but from initial info we can
guess that the storm played a role in the incident. The black box(es)
if found should reveal more.

@David  ;) About our national carrier, the biggest measure of pilot's
skill is in the landings and it's sad that they fall short. By the way
those short african routes if they use a 737 could be flown by junior
pilots still perfecting the art, pole sana for the hard landings. few
and far between, not for long....

@ steve- about dodgy airports there's this one called Port elizabeth
where winds over 80 km/h are not uncommon, I remember guys clapping
for the pilot after the landing!

@aki- interesting that, they go through a lot of that!

On 03/06/2009, Steve Obbayi <steve@sobbayi.com> wrote:
>
> yeah but be warned. the installation with gobble up about 18GB of disk space
> after installation. (thats basic installation). its basically for the
> terrain, scenary, ground and air objects, buildings... well the whole works
> basically
>
>   _____
>
> From: skunkworks-bounces@lists.my.co.ke
> [mailto:skunkworks-bounces@lists.my.co.ke] On Behalf Of aki
> Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 12:14 PM
> To: Skunkworks forum
> Subject: Re: [Skunkworks] Air France: Turbulence brought it down?
>
>
> @ david, sorry need to make a small diversion...
>
> @steve : maybe we find a way to put it online sometime when seacom etc is
> cheaper. I still have Su-27 Flanker, the only plane ever to execute a
> pugachev cobra! imho. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daOPK07baBw
>



--
Barrack O. Otieno
ISSEN CONSULTING
Tel:
+254721325277
+254733206359
http://projectdiscovery.or.ke
To give up the task of reforming society is to give up ones responsibility as a free man.
Alan Paton, South Africa

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