Back in the 1970s, when I was working north, I took time to get a mountain checkout ride with the flying club in Whitehorse, Yukon. This is standard procedure if you want to rent one of their aircraft — they have to make sure you were properly trained. So, you go up with an instructor for an hour, and try to impress.My instructor, was rather low-key, easy going. We got along well. My mountain checkout — and yeah, it is mountainous there — was quite simple. He pointed to a mountain, and said, “See that?”I said “yes.” He responded, “Stay away from them.”I got the message. Don’t go messing with mountain peaks, or their infamous updrafts and downdrafts. They are dangerous to a small Piper Warrior like the one we were flying. By the way it was brand new, and it had a full survival kit in back — including a .22 calibre rifle and ammo.The other thing he told me, was: “What do you do, when you’re riding a bike, and it’s bumpy?”I said, “I slow down.”“Well …” he said. It was bumpy, I throttled back, that made things better.And that was about it. My only question to him was, “What do I do if I lose an engine?”He answered nonchalantly: “Look for a (river) sand bar.”In other words, don’t put it in the trees — although, years later a famous bush pilot told me, that actually was possible. So that was my mountain checkout..I mention this, following the recent incident involving a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777, which encountered severe turbulence in a storm cell over Myanmar, formerly Burma for you older folks.Media reports blared about the plane diving 6,000 feet and passengers getting tossed around like rag dolls. Many were severely injured and one man died of a heart attack.In fact data from flightradar24 has shown the plane didn’t dive. In fact, it went up about 1,500 ft. and then down 1,500 ft.The reported 6,000 ft. drop was actually a normal descent, inputted by the crew on the autopilot. The death dive never happened.What was extreme, was the ft.-per-minute rate of the turbulence (see graphic.) They really got bashed.Why the crew flew into a dangerous, "hook pattern" storm cell remains unknown. Usually, that can be seen on the aircraft’s weather radar. The National Transportation Safety Board team that was rushed to Bangkok will likely find that out, and we will watch the whole thing recreated on the TV show Mayday eventually.When I was in flight school back in 1973, they told us that storm cell updrafts and downdrafts can be greater than 1,000 fps, which no plane is designed to handle. In other words, stay out of it.That message became clear to me when I lost a friend in 1975, Don Plumb, who died when he crashed his fully restored P-51 Mustang in a thunderstorm in Texas. Don never had a chance — and we still don't exactly know what happened.The media also drew links from the incident, to global warming. Blaming it on the changes in weather. All caused because we aren’t paying enough carbon taxes at the gas pumps. Right..Well, guess what folks. Ever since man went up in the air, bad stuff has happened. Let me take you to March 5, 1966.BOAC flight 911, a six-year-old Boeing 707, departed Tokyo, with 124 passengers and crew. The pilot decided to give his passengers a nice view of the famous Mt. Fuji, breaking a golden rule about deviating from his route.The plane would break apart due to what was described as clear air turbulence, killing everyone.What is famous about this incident, is who wasn’t on the flight.Cancelling their passage at the last minute, were several very prominent members of the film crew for the then-young James Bond film franchise.These included producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, co-producer Harry Saltzman, set designer Ken Adam, director Lewis Gilbert, and cinematographer Freddie Young. Movers and shakers in the film business.They were in Japan at the time scouting out shooting locations for the next film (and 5th film overall) in the James Bond franchise, 1967's You Only Live Twice.They all had tickets to fly on BOAC Flight 911, but at the last minute decided to cancel their tickets to instead attend a ninja demonstration that day. This decision ultimately saved their lives and perhaps the Bond series itself. Who knows what could have happened to the franchise if so many key people involved in the early production of the films ended up being wiped out in one blow?Indeed, their missing the flight is mentioned in a documentary on the making of You Only Live Twice.Expert analysis determined that the plane was subjected to a momentary gravitational load in excess of +7.5G, outright killing some of the passengers, particularly any who had their seat belts unfastened. Flight 911 had suddenly flown into a monstrous standing rotor "gust" caused by Mt. Fuji’s “mountain wave.”According to Medium.com, the violent wind gust also fatally damaged the airplane. It ripped off the 707’s tailfin, smashing it over against the left horizontal stabilizer.The stabilizer also broke away, causing the plane to pitch steeply upward in a fraction of a second.The sudden pitch-up overstressed all four engine pylons to the breaking point, and the engines separated from the wings, followed almost instantaneously by the tailplane as far forward as the rear exit doors.Turbulence isn’t new, folks, and linking it with climate change, is just plain wrong.
