#292 A Pilot Explains: Turbulence Into Johannesburg, The Worst Hit Of My Career Was On A Clear Day

DESCRIPTION:

Turbulence won't necessarily break the aircraft. It will hurt the people who aren't strapped in. The worst hit of my flying career came on a perfectly clear day on final approach into Johannesburg, with not a cloud in the sky, and it ended in a go-around.

This is the episode for anyone who is nervous about flying. I take you through what a Johannesburg summer thunderstorm looks like from the flight deck, what hail did to the nose of an aircraft I used to fly when it never even entered the storm, a flight where the weather radar showed nothing and a passenger died, and the one simple thing the investigators asked you, the passenger, to do about it.

Along the way: how pilots use the weather radar and the 20 mile rule to draw a line around a storm, why thermal turbulence over the Highveld is uncomfortable but not dangerous, why your Cape Town flight is late on a perfect day, what the final report on Singapore Airlines Flight 321 says about clear air turbulence and about the pilots, why some captains leave the seat belt sign on through smooth air and what that costs them, and how the wake from an A380 landing on the parallel runway reached across and hit a 50 seat regional jet on runway 03 Left.

IN THIS EPISODE:

The clear day hit: wake turbulence on final approach into O.R. Tambo and a go-around

Flying around Johannesburg summer storms: the weather radar, the 20 mile rule, TCAS and the aircraft ahead

Thermal turbulence, and what hail thrown out of the side of a storm did to the nose of an aircraft

What we train in the simulator: the decision to go around a storm, not the radar picture

Why your Cape Town flight is late on a perfect day, and the airline that still arrived on time 91 percent of the time in 2025

Clear air turbulence: Singapore Airlines Flight 321, the final report, and the one piece of advice for passengers

The seat belt sign: why it stays on, the cost of leaving it on too long, and the second pint