AirAsia Flight 8501: What Makes Thunderstorms Such a Threat to Airliners
It’s been two days since AirAsia Flight 8501 disappeared over the Java Sea, and still there’s no sign of the missing plane or the 162 people aboard. It is, of course, all but impossible to know at this point just what went wrong, but we do know the flight’s planned route to Singapore would have taken it through clusters of thunderstorms, and we know the crew moved west of their course to avoid clouds.
Modern airliners are quite capable of flying above the worst weather, and they can shake off lightning strikes and extreme turbulence and even fly for hours at a time with just one engine. Given their remarkable durability, one might wonder why a thunderstorm might post so great a threat, and why pilots try to avoid them. It’s because thunderstorms combine nearly all of the hassles and hazards pilots dread.
