Staying safe during flight turbulence: Simon Calder explains

Staying safe during flight turbulence: Simon Calder explainsSource: Simon Calder

Transcript

00:00The news that eight people have been significantly injured when a Ryanair flight from Berlin to Milan

00:08struck turbulence over southern Germany will be very worrying for a lot of people.

00:15After all, it would be great if pilots were able to identify when there was going to be some very unstable air and avoid it.

00:25Well, they absolutely do whenever they can, but sometimes, as we see from time to time, there is simply nothing that can be done.

00:37Except, if you're a passenger, you can follow the regime of just staying strapped in at all times,

00:45except when you're moving around the cabin, because that way, while it can be extremely uncomfortable and unpleasant

00:52to be involved in severe turbulence, you are much less likely to be hurt.

00:59And while, understandably, some of the passengers' accounts say,

01:05well, we thought we were going to die,

01:07I can absolutely sympathise with people who are feeling that this is a really terrible situation.

01:14Bear in mind that modern aircraft are designed to cope with turbulence,

01:18and also, Ryanair, the airline involved, is the safest airline in the world in 40 years.

01:26It has flown well over a billion passengers without any of them dying in an accident.

01:33That is a remarkable record, and I am very happy to fly on Ryanair,

01:38or any other excellent European or other airline which knows what it is doing,

01:45and that is the vast majority of them, aviation safety is absolutely paramount.