What they wouldn't tell you about turbulence! Including case studies.

Turbulence is a violent, irregular air motion that normally cannot be seen and often occurs unexpectedly. If the sky appears to be clear, turbulence can still occur. In other words, you are NEVER safe from turbulence, and you will ALWAYS experience some turbulence on a flight. So if you don't like turbulence, guess what, you are going to get it.

Turbulence is nasty. Very nasty. Turbulence is actually changes in air pressure, this can be pockets of hot air amongst cold air, or high wind patterns. It causes the plane you are sitting on, to be thrown around like a tennis ball. That's right, the plane you are sitting on, that weighs an average of 380 tonne, gets thrown around. Another bad thing about Turbulence - it's invisible. Pilots can't see it, can't even detect it with all of their gadgets in the cockpit.

Turbulence is rated, and has four categories. They are light, moderate and severe.

Below is fatal events caused by turbulence. Nothing to poke fun at, turbulence is down right nasty.

If you do a search on the web, you will find the following accidents cause by turbulence:

• 10 May 1980; Indian Airlines 737-200; near Rampur Hat, India: The aircraft experienced severe en route turbulence. Two of the 132 passengers were killed.
• 7 October 1981; NLM CityHopper F28-4000; Moerdijk, Netherlands: Shortly after takeoff, the aircraft entered an area of severe thunderstorm activity. The aircraft apparently had a catastrophic in flight structural failure due to severe turbulence because it was seen to emerge from the clouds with one of its wings broken away. All four crew members and 13 passengers were killed.
• 16 August 1982; China Airlines 747; near Hong Kong: The aircraft encountered severe in flight turbulence. Two of the 292 passengers were killed.
• 3 October 1990; Eastern DC9-31; Florida, USA: The aircraft clear air turbulence at 31,000 feet (9450 m). One injured passenger died three weeks later.
• 5 September 1996; Air France 747-400; near Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso: Severe turbulence associated with a weather front seriously injured three of the 206 passengers. One of the three passengers later died of injuries caused by an in flight entertainment screen.
• 28 December 1997; United Airlines 747-100; over Pacific Ocean near Japan: The aircraft encountered severe turbulence during cruise about two hours after departing Japan. One of the 346 passengers was killed. None of the 23 crew members were killed but three sustained serious injuries.