Click here for Mobile Site: http://m.cbs4denver.com
  • Font Size    
Advertising
E-mail

Close Window E-mail This Page

New Urgency Surrounds Turbulence Study In Boulder

Required fields are marked with an asterisk(*)

The information you provide will be used only to send the requested e-mail and will not be used to send any other e-mail communications. Read more in our Privacy Policy

Send E-mail

   Print     Share +    Comments
Aug 4, 2009 3:21 pm US/Mountain

New Urgency Surrounds Turbulence Study In Boulder

Reporting
Shaun Boyd
BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4/AP) ― Some passengers were snoozing while others snacked when the first turbulence rattled Continental Flight 128 over the Atlantic. Suddenly, the jetliner began to plunge and shake violently, hurling passengers over seatbacks and slamming them against luggage bins.

The Boeing 767 made an emergency landing in Miami early Monday so at least 26 injured, four seriously, could receive medical help. But the sudden turbulence that rocked the overnight flight from Rio de Janeiro was an all-too-real reminder of an Air France flight — also traveling from Rio — that crashed into the mid-Atlantic in June during thunderstorms, killing all 228 people on board.

The Continental flight and the Air France disaster have given added urgency to a turbulence study that's under way in Boulder.

Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research are developing a system aimed at pinpointing where turbulence is in clouds and how severe it is. The information would then be transmitted to pilots via satellite.

"What we'll do is send a customized message for each plane and it will go through a satellite uplink and show up as a printed message on the cockpit printer," lead investigator John Williams said.

Williams helped develop a similar system for flights over the United States. He says they will apply that to oceanic flights where turbulence is especially difficult to predict because of the lack of radar.

Williams says pilots get weather updates only every 4 to 6 hours and the information tells where a storm is but not how violent it is.

"What we can do is give them much more timely high-resolution relevant information that will help them know what the weather situation is in front of the aircraft," he said.

He hopes to test the system in United Airlines flights within a year and, if all goes well, turn it over to the Federal Aviation Administration within a couple years.

(© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

Curious & Controversial News

Add Comment

here. here. Need a log in? Register here
  •  * Will not be displayed with comment
  •  * e.g. (http://www.mywebsite.com)
  •  
  • Click here to refresh with new letters

Show Comments (0)

Close Window Login


Close Window Flag Comment


loading...
You need the latest Flash player to view video content.
Click here to download.

Click here to bypass this detection if you already have the latest Flash Player.

Colorado & Denver News

Top News Stories

© MMX, CBS Television Stations Inc. All Rights Reserved.