Just recently we landed on a 777 during a thunderstorm. It was very bumpy, so was it safe?

Question

The air brakes were also operated whilst still in the clouds and the pilot brought the plane down fast. The airplane behind us aborted the landing. Needless to say, it was quite a scary experience.

Answer 1

You landed on a 777 !!!!!! the airline  must have been annoyed.

Answer 2

There is such a thing as "minimum turbulence penetration speed", hence the use of air brakes to slow the aircraft to a safe airspeed. Pilots strenuously avoid thunderstorms and with onboard equipment and the help of ground control, they NEVER intentionally fly into the middle of them or take off or land if a storm is directly over an airport . However, airlines often have to fly near them, so turbulence is to be expected. Since storms can quickly grow in intensity, it is not unusual for one plane to make it through and the next one, only a few minutes behind, not. To passengers, such flights always seem a little scary, but in the cockpit they are not. Airline pilots are highly trained and experienced and they do not put themselves in jeopardy, much less the people sitting behind them. You should be more worried about having an accident on the highway. The equivalent of a Boeing 747 load of people (300-400) are killed on US highways every single week.

Answer 3

during a storm there is turbulence caused by the wind. sometime its a cross wind(going from left to right or visa versa, which makes for a very tricky landing, but yes it is very safe. its the safest form os transportation in the world

Answer 4

"Air brakes" is a term used in flying R/C models. With the availability of programmable transmitters, we can mix the controls. In this case, we mix flaps and down elevator. The reason for that is that whenever you lower the flaps, the model noses up. The mixing solves that problem. Since all models react different, the percentage of mixing can be adjusted. In addition, we can operate the flaps independent of the mixed control  for takeoff or other in air maneuvers.

  

Answer 5

airplanes and pilots will not intentionally fly into thunderstorms.

Often, passengers think they're in a Tstorm but actually, the pilot is actually flying between two Tstorm cells. He knows exactly where the cells are with his weather radar and can avoid them easily.

airplanes can stand a surreal amount of turbulence before any kind of damage occurs. turbulence won't be a problem.

what is dangerous about Tstorms is not the lightning, but rather the icing conditions, bumpiness, and sudden, extremely powerful downdrafts.

air brakes, or spoilers will be used 3 approaches out of 4 regardless of weather. They're used to slow or, and or descend quickly according to ATC requests or pilot discretion. Spoiler use in a cloud is not indicative of anything out of the ordinary. Airplanes are in the sky, clouds are in the sky, it happens that an airplane will fly into a cloud with spoilers operating. Be grateful clouds aren't solid.

pilots are professional, but once in awhile, they will have a landing they will grade themselves a D. It happens, and usually, it was due to a sudden wind change, a downdraft, bad luck, a mech malfunction etc. Give them a normal day, with clear skies, and smooth winds, and they'll do it perfectly with their eyes closed. A pilot landing their plane with no damage at close proximity to adverse weather conditions did a pretty good job already. Naturally, after experiencing a few landings, you'll pick the smoothest one and rate the others accordingly. What you should do is also take into account the weather conditions in which the plane landed. I fly a lot commercially and in my 172. Commercially, during a thunderstorm, the best landing I experienced has one big jolt. The worst was when the airplane bounced no less than 3 times and the pilot was crazily jabbing the rudder to keep on centerline. I didn't think we landed perfectly level either. We were still banking around after the second bounce. People were screaming their heads off.

the airplane behind you might have aborted because a thunderstorm cell drifted over the final approach path among many other possible reasons such as ILS malfunction, low visibility, airplane problem etc. It is also not indicative of something gone wrong on your flight.

A Tstorm cell over the approach path is very dangerous because if a sudden downdraft occurs, the airplane does not have enough altitude or speed to safely recover. There has been several accidents prior to the understanding of such phenomenons like microbursts and downdrafts in a Tstorm. Better safe than sorry. It's a definite wave-off (go-around) if the doppler radar shows possibilities of microburst over final approach path.

Answer 6

winds can be treacherous, but the plans have to land before they run out of fuel.   the pilot only has so many options and to land is his top priority at that point.

i don't know what you mean by THE AIR BREAKS were operated while still in the clouds.  the only thing i know of would be they have to lower the wing flaps and power down the engines while still in flight.

turbulent in while in flight cause a very bumpy (and scary) flight.

not much a pilot can do about that because that happens suddenly.

sometimes they'll change the altitude of the plane to get away from turbulence.

Answer 7

If all it was was "very bumpy" then you didn't experience much turbulence.    

Were you in a thundersrtorm or just in rain near one?

The brakes are there to be operated.

The pilot knows what he's doing; you do not know what he's doing.

The airplane behind aborted the landing.  Therefore what?

It was "quite a scary experience"?  You don't know enough of the dangers to be  properly scared.  

Answer 8

Well, DUH, you made it didn't you ?

Answer 9

Boeing makes very tough planes. Just draw a deep breath, and realize that most people die in beds.

(Be sure you dial in the correct sleep number tonight!)

Answer 10

Was it safe is your question, correct? Correct.

Ok. You landed didn't you. Yes.

Are you or anyone else on the flight hurt due to the flight conditions. Not that you have said, so I'll say no.

Do the 2 above questions, make a "safe" flight. Yes.

What is a safe flight. Any landing you can walk away from, no matter how hard that landing maybe, is a good landing.

EDIT: There are no such thing as air brakes, u can't put the brakes on in the air, you can deploy the speed brakes, to reduce the speed in the air, but air brakes don't exist.

Answer 11

You survived unharmed, and so did the aircraft, so it was safe.  The pilot was probably just trying to avoid actually running into the thunderstorm. Being close to a thunderstorm isn't necessarily dangerous, but flying right through one definitely is.  Sometimes it's hard to tell which is which from a passenger window.

There's a huge difference between a very bumpy ride and a dangerous ride.  Even turbulence that tosses people around inside the airplane still isn't necessarily dangerous for the flight.  Do keep your seatbelts fastened, though.

Answer 12

It does not sound safe.  

On a 777 you were probably flying a long time and the pilots were probably exhausted, poorly paid (most had a 50% pay cut and the loss of their pensions) and are working second jobs to pay family expenses.

I hope you enjoyed your cheap ticket.  That flight is where all you passengers who don't want to pay $50 more for a ticket are going to end up.  

Well, the lucky ones who aren't crushed and burned alive in the crash.

Ticket prices down, airplanes go down.  Crash.

Answer 13

Thats what they do. If there is a T-storm and you are going through it and they are putting on speed brakes they are trying to slow down. the plane behind was maybe going to fast or they thought they should abort. It depends on the visibility.  

Answer 14

I have heard, any landing you walk away from is a good landing.