Font Size

Advertising

Colorado & Denver News

E-mail

Close Window E-mail This Page

New Urgency Surrounds Turbulence Study In Boulder

Required fields are marked with an asterisk(*)

Recipient E-mail:*
- Your Name:*
- Your E-mail:*
Add a Message:
Send me a copy of this e-mail.

Type the characters in this picture:*

Click here to refresh with new letters

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) ―

Click to enlarge 1 of 3: Lead researcher John Williams at the National Center for Atmospheric Research .
CBS
Click to enlarge 2 of 3: A Continental flight was diverted to Miami International Airport after experiencing turbulence north of the Dominican Republic. (File)
AP
Click to enlarge 3 of 3: Brazilian Navy sailors recover debris from Air France Airbus A330 plane, Atlantic Ocean, June 2009. All 229 people on board were killed.
AP

Close

numSlides of totalImages

Related Links

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.

Curious & Controversial News

Add Comment

here. here. Need a log in? Register here

Your Name
Your E-Mail * Will not be displayed with comment
Suggest Link * e.g. (http://www.mywebsite.com)
Your Comment

Type the characters in this picture:*

Click here to refresh with new letters

Show Comments (0)

Close Window Login

Password:

Forgot Password | Register Here

Close Window Flag Comment

You are flagging the following comment:

Username:
E-mail:
Reason:

Type the characters in this picture:*

Click here to refresh with new letters

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.