Zhang Qiang
Tornadoes are so powerful that they can throw heavy objects on the ground into the air at once. And what if the plane in the air encounters a tornado?
Most tornadoes occur in the troposphere, where the temperature difference is obvious and the weather is complex and changeable. The cruise phase of large passenger planes is mainly in the upper troposphere or stratosphere and will not be affected by tornadoes. Although in the take-off and landing phase, domestic airports are generally strictly located and will not be built in areas with high tornado incidence, everything happens by accident, and there are also cases where airplanes pass by tornadoes:
On April 30, 2014, the central part of the United States was hit by a strong tornado, and a helicopter crashed after being sucked by the tornado in the process of chasing the wind.
In January, 2015, a plane in Lebanon passed by a huge tornado while flying, flying calmly and calmly, as easily as soy sauce. Let’s just say that the pilot is too courageous.
On June 14th, 2014, there was a small vortex (a tornado that didn’t reach EF0 level) on the North Road of Capital Airport. The decades-old trees on the side of the North Road of Airport were cut off by the waist, and the entrance of the flight corps was a mess …
In order to deal with these tornadoes that come and go quickly, and other bad weather, Doppler radars are built in major airports in China, and meteorologists monitor strong convective weather such as thunderstorms and hail 24 hours a day. If the Doppler radar finds the "primary embryo" of the tornado or it has been generated, the meteorologists will strengthen monitoring and tracking, analyze which direction these disastrous weather may move according to various data, and then issue weather warnings to those affected routes and airports.
For this daunting natural phenomenon, "hiding" is the best way to get out of danger. Before the flight, the flight crew will look at satellite cloud pictures, national weather radar puzzles and airport weather reports, understand the actual situation and weather forecast including thunderstorms and related dangerous weather conditions, and comprehensively consider the take-off alternate field, route weather, destination and other alternate field situations.
For passengers, if they want to know the weather in flight, they can use WeChat WeChat official account "AirportWeather" to extract airport weather reports, airport radar images and satellite cloud images before taking off or after landing. In addition, bumps and injuries at an altitude of 10,000 meters occur every summer. Passengers are advised to fasten their seat belts all the way.
(Source: The author of China Meteorological News is an engineer of Meteorological Center of North China Air Traffic Control Bureau of Civil Aviation. Editor: Wang Meili)