Vertical drop causes
The passenger reports coming out this morning all suggest that the aircraft just dropped vertically without warning, leaving passengers pinned against the ceiling only to be slammed down when the descent was arrested, wih some being injured by collapsing overhead compartments.
That kind of vertical drop does not sound like something that an a/c's control surfaces can trigger when it's travelling in level cruise at FL39 or thereabouts. It sounds more like some kind of microburst phenomenon or similar massive downdraft. Maybe the doppler wasn't working properly and didn't pick it up, or it was just a severe form of classic CAT.
With global warming I predict we are going to see an increasing number of incidents like these.
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Philip
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