I Refuse to Not Be Afraid of Turbulence, and You Should Too.
Full article here.
What is turbulence?
"Clear air turbulence is air movement created by atmospheric pressure, jet streams, air around mountains, cold or warm weather fronts or thunderstorms," the Federal Aviation Administration says on its website.
Sometimes it's unexpected and can happen during clear skies.
I know what it is, turbulence is when your plane is just fake crashing. How will you be able to tell if what you’re feeling is just turbulence or your plane going down? You won’t.
You're not likely to get hurt
Despite the recent headlines, the actual rate of injury due to turbulence is quite low. U.S. mainline and regional carriers flew an estimated 731 million paying passengers on domestic flights in 2011.
Oh that’s great! Thing is folks, airplanes are kind of all in injury wise; you’re either going to walk off fine or you’re going to die in a flaming skeleton in some pasture. So thanks so much for your guarantee that I won’t get injured, but I’d prefer your guarantee that I won’t die.
It feels worse than it is
Moments of turbulence can feel scary and quite dramatic, and passengers will swear their plane has dropped thousands of feet. Smith calls it the "passenger embellishment factor." And it's almost always not true.
This one is insulting. I was recently on a plane that hit some serious turbulence when we went down for landing. The thing sped up to was faster than usual, went into a minor dive, and then pulled up at the last second. Everybody fucking freaked out. I looked dead ahead. Turned off College Ninja Warrior because I didn’t want to die watching some greasy parkour nerd from Northeastern fall of the monkey bars. I looked dead ahead and thought, “just pretend it’s not happening.” Then the woman sitting next to me started crying and screaming “OPEN THE WINDOW OPEN THE WINDOW”. That’s no way to go out.
So listen up, stay woke, keep your head on a swivel, when you feel the bumps- start planning your last thoughts, your last words, and turn on that tv hoping to God that it all ends before the next commercial break.
