For anyone interested, there are several great youtube videos[1-4] that show the wakes (the wingtip vortices in particular) created by various aircraft.<p>This incident brings the Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM)[5] into question. Strategic Lateral Offset Procedure (SLOP)[6] can be used used to avoid such incidents.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1ESmvyAmOs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1ESmvyAmOs</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfY5ZQDzC5s" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfY5ZQDzC5s</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy0hgG2pkUs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy0hgG2pkUs</a><p>[4] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXlv16ETueU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXlv16ETueU</a><p>[5] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_vertical_separation_minima" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_vertical_separation_mi...</a><p>[6] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lateral_offset_procedure" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lateral_offset_proce...</a>
This is a reminder that the announcement that you should "keep your seat belt fastened at all times when you're in your seat" isn't just something someone made up. It's a small price to pay in case you ever encounter severe turbulence en route, but it might be one of these things that most people don't realize until it happens to them. Hitting your head against the cabin ceiling can seriously put a damper on your trip.
Had to google around to understand wake turbulence. If I read the wiki correctly, it's basically a horizontal tornado that emanates from the wings. That would explain the rolling that the aircraft encountered.<p>On another note, I fly every week for work, can't imagine rolling five times and engines losing power with a drop of 10k feet. That's absolutely insane. I've had engines lose power before, but it was quickly regained such that the drop was more moderate.
This is quite interesting. I've been living underneath a flight plan for the last few years, and every now and then I've noticed a strange noise that seems to come from the air a few seconds after a plane has passed overhead on approach. The best way I can describe it is as a tearing noise, somewhat like a long stretched version of a tear in paper, or fabric. I've long suspected that it may be due to turbulence, and this article certainly suggests that the turbulence for some aircraft is much more powerful than I'd suspected.
Big problem is the use of autopilot navigation locked to the GPS route.. this pretty much guarantees that you will fly right below the wake of the above plane on the same route! (Before GPS it will be <i>very</i> odd to flight exactly the same path) ..
The wakes of large aircraft are such that even big passenger planes make sure to keep plenty of separation.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587</a><p>Is another example (though pilot error likely made a bad situation worse in that particular incident).
The physics of this are insane. Then again, by my calculation the A380 displaces roughly 11 million cubic feet of air per second at the max landing weight.
Good video of the same (similar?) effect on a small plane after taking off after an Antonov-2<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXlv16ETueU" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXlv16ETueU</a>
I've been on a widebody caught in an A380 wake before. Some seriously violent turbulence for a few seconds, and the pilot came on afterwards to tell us what happened.
Holy smokes that must have been terrifying. Glad nobody died. I hate flying as it is (not that I'm likely to ever find myself in a private jet anytime soon).
Wow. Uncontrolled roll at least 3 times, maybe 5. G-loads severe enough to damage the airframe beyond repair. And this was a 9-passenger bizjet, not a tiny light single.
Pilots should be aware of wake turbulence and wingtip vortices in particular, and should be aware that being at a lower altitude than the generating aircraft is the most dangerous position (the vortex pattern is denser than the surrounding air and therefore descends).<p>Also, an invisible vortex is no less turbulent for its invisibility.
Landing at O'Hare in a smaller bombardier 2x2 (crj 700 I think) jet following a jumbo was an interesting (white knuckle) ride I had in recent memory. The plane turned over lake michigan east of the city and felt like it went completely 90deg to the ground losing a good amount of altitude which I do not believe was the pilots intention. I definitely heard a few gasps, the stewardess curse and my wife grip my hand hard. Followed by 10 minutes of bumps, drops, and wing waggling and a landing that felt like we simply dropped 10 feet on to the tarmac.<p>Those little jets man... they're fine most of the time but what a spooky experience that was.
IMO this has slightly better info: <a href="https://avherald.com/h?article=4a5e80f3&opt=0" rel="nofollow">https://avherald.com/h?article=4a5e80f3&opt=0</a>
Tangentally related - We deal with this a lot in Wingsuit BASE jumping (well, in wingsuit skydiving as well, but wake vortices and turbulence (aka 'burbles') have killed more than a few extremely talented pilots in the last year).<p>It's fucking wild how small of a wing can put off a sizable wake. With wingsuits, if you fly behind and slightly above a buddy, you're going to hit his burble and you're going to immediately lose lift and possibly start spinning. There's a clip floating around of a bunch of us on a training jump in race suits and one of the guys hits a burble from the group and just gets dropped a few hundred feet damn near immediately.<p>EDIT: Found it - <a href="http://giphy.com/gifs/cBP3YE9hf9oVa" rel="nofollow">http://giphy.com/gifs/cBP3YE9hf9oVa</a><p>Here's a solid article that touches on it w/r/t lift - <a href="http://base-book.com/speed-to-fly" rel="nofollow">http://base-book.com/speed-to-fly</a><p>...and here's one that's a bit more applied that has to do with how burbles affect canopy deployments - <a href="http://base-book.com/some-thoughts-on-wingsuit-openings" rel="nofollow">http://base-book.com/some-thoughts-on-wingsuit-openings</a>
Right now, the vertical separation minima for aircraft worldwide are not conditional on size. At altitudes above 28,000ft MSL, the minimum vertical separation is 1000ft, even for superjumbos. It is probably a rare event that two aircraft come so close both vertically <i>and</i> horizontally, but I wonder if there will be a rule change because of this incident nonetheless.<p>By contrast, the <i>horizontal</i> separation minima vary dramatically based on the size of the leading aircraft.
I thought controllers space aircraft based on their takeoff weight for this reason. Is this true?<p>A380s are HUGE, so this isn't surprising. wake turbulence is a killer
I wonder the private plane had to be written off...was the damage that bad? It's like the plane broke apart ..maybe the probems were mostly internal