Wake turbulence from an A380 flipped a small business jet 3 times

[KeithP]

http://flightservicebureau.org/enroute-a380-wake-flips-challenger-604-upside-down/

A Challenger 604 at FL340 operating from Male-Abu Dhabi passed an A380 opposite direction at FL350, one thousand feet above, about 630nm southeast of Muscat, Oman, over the Arabian Sea.

A short time later (1-2 minutes) the aircraft encountered wake turbulence sending the aircraft into an uncontrolled roll, turning the aircraft around at least 3 times (possibly even 5 times), both engines flamed out, the aircraft lost about 10,000 feet until the crew was able to recover the aircraft, restart the engines and divert to Muscat. The aircraft received damage beyond repair due to the G-forces, and was written off.

Sounds like an interesting flight. Yikes!

-KeithP

 

[Ns1]

that's what happens when you look at the alpha plane the wrong way.

 

[Zanovar]

Ya.sounds like one of those flights you would suddenly become religious on..

 

[MrSquished]

I'd prefer flights without flipping thanks. Dipping a little is fine. Turbulence can be fun. But flipping? Oh hell no, I didn't get on a plane to do loopdy loops

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Give that flight crew a raise.

 

[OutHouse]

wow , airframe damage and insurance wrote it off as a loss.

 

[Darwin333]

Give that flight crew a raise.

No shit! I bet everyone on board needed a change of underwear and pants after that.

 

[Darwin333]

wow , airframe damage and insurance wrote it off as a loss.

I'd imagine the kind of force that is required to put a jet like that into 3-5 uncontrolled rolls is insane, I wouldn't want to fly in it again. They also lost 10,000' of altitude but it doesn't say if they came out of the roll in a dive that required a relatively large G (for the plane) maneuver to level off and start gliding while they restarted the engines. Could you imagine when the roll finally stopped if they were inverted and nose down in a business jet and the engines just died!? I wonder just how many Gs they pulled during all of that.

 

[IronWing]

I bet an A380 at a thousand feet looks freaking huge!

 

[dave_the_nerd]

From the links below the article, it looks like this is a common thing, and you just DON'T want to pass behind and below an A380.

But really? 1-2 minutes later? That would be like 10 miles away. Something doesn't add up in this particular story...

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yikes. And it totaled the aircraft. Wake turbulance is pretty serious stuff, really need to give yourself a couple km distance from large aircraft, or their past path for a while. The turbulances can last a while and be quite dangerous.

 

[tynopik]

Give that flight crew a raise.

no, you fire them for not maintaining a safe separation

But really? 1-2 minutes later? That would be like 10 miles away. Something doesn't add up in this particular story...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_turbulence

a small plane following an A-380 is required to maintain 8nm of separation

 

[Kaido]

Ah, so that's what happened to Danny Rand.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_turbulence

a small plane following an A-380 is required to maintain 8nm of separation

Well shit. TIL++. Thanks.

 

[Anubis]

no, you fire them for not maintaining a safe separation



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_turbulence

a small plane following an A-380 is required to maintain 8nm of separation

8 nano meters is a tiny fucking amount

 

[Gerle]

no, you fire them for not maintaining a safe separation

It sounds like they did what they were told to do? Perhaps established wake turbulence separation minima need to be looked at.

 

[John Connor]

Ya.sounds like one of those flights you would suddenly become religious on..

I had a girl friend that was very religious. In fact, every Sunday morning she would get in the missionary position.

 

[John Connor]

A small Biz jet like a Challenger is no match for an A380. Hell, the Lear 45 has a handle on the over head for a reason.

 

[Red Squirrel]

A small Biz jet like a Challenger is no match for an A380. Hell, the Lear 45 has a handle on the over head for a reason.

AKA the holy shit handle.

 

[John Connor]

I don't know about Canada, but here they call it the "OH SHIT!" handle. LOL

 

[OutHouse]

 

[Darwin333]

I had a girl friend that was very religious. In fact, every Sunday morning she would get in the missionary position.

Bah, that's nothing. Mine gets on her knees multiple times a week.

 

[Zanovar]

haha

 

[sdifox]

no, you fire them for not maintaining a safe separation



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_turbulence

a small plane following an A-380 is required to maintain 8nm of separation

They were going in opposite directions and the smaller plane was one thouthand feet above.

 

[KillerCharlie]

no, you fire them for not maintaining a safe separation



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_turbulence

a small plane following an A-380 is required to maintain 8nm of separation

Not true - what you listed is for approach only. This incident was in cruise.

In cruise, the only requirement is 500 ft separation, which is already enforced through the VSM/RVSM requirements anyways.

The requirements for cruise are lower for a few reasons. The wake turbulence is weaker at higher (cruise) speeds. Also, the airspace is much less congested in cruise so am occurrence is rare (safety is relative - likelihood of an incident does matter). The airplanes are also not following each other (leassening the time spent in turbulence) and there is a lot of altitude to recover if something goes wrong.

IIRC, even takeoff requirements are less stringent than landing for similar reasons.

I have worked on wake turbulence a few times in my career. My colleague is one of the industry experts in the field.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...Wj_Qa478K4qUnkWBA&sig2=I5R3LUrzLVWydGaEZaRLGA