Can somebody provide me with 4 or 5 major accidents/incidents that were because of turbulence. I remember seeing something on this board about clear air turbulence and some plane over Japan. Any help would be appreciated.

FlyMKG

I dont think there ever was a major accident or incident caused by turnbulance. If you mean a crash or something like that.
There have been injuries and a few deaths due to turbulance but the only reason the people would have been hurt or killed is because there were FAs out of the jumpseats or pax not using their seatbelts.
But no crashes to my knowledege that were cause be turbulance.

Try these... Some are turbulence-related...

http://www.aviation-safety.net/database/dblist.php?Event=WXT



CAT ripped off most of the tail of this one, but there was no crash...

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/bombers/b4/b52h-5.jpg

[Edited 2005-03-29 05:45:29]

What about the Delta L1011 that crashed during final approach to DFW upon entering a microburst? There was a severe weather front in the area. It happened in 1985.
The pilot lost control completely due to the extremely violent turbulence and many other pilots who repeated the approach in simulators under the same conditions during the investigation phase were unsuccessful trying to get through that chop too...now that's some serious stuff.

There was also a USAir B737 that crashed during approach too. Can't remember the place but it was somewhere with mountains (excuse my bad memory here) and the FAA's investigators found out that turbulence was a big player on that accident.

Of course we also have the Mandarin Airlines MD11 that crashed in Hong Kong shortly after Chek Lap Kok airport was inaugurated, and the Martinair's DC10-30 that crashed in Faro, Portugal under similar conditions. The Iberia DC10-30 that crash-landed in Boston back in 1973 due to loss of altitude caused by windshear on final approach (no casualties but the DC10 was written off despite being just a few months old).

And finally, I remember back in 1985 there was a serious incident (thank God no casualties there) when a 747 coming to the US east coast from Taiwan or China and was caught by a really strong CAT. It lost about 27,000 ft (believe it or not!!) and lost part of the horizontal/vertical stabilizers before the pilot managed to re-gain control of the situation. The aircrfat was just a couple hundred miles away from the US coast and finally performed a successful emergency landing. I even remember that my mother was on a holiday travel somewhere in Europe by then, and she sent me the newspaper's page with the incident report by mail. She wrote down: and you still dream about becoming a pilot after seeing this?...hehe.
No need to mention she's still afraid about flying. Of course I'm not! But didn't get to become a pilot either!!

About turbulence. I don't mind at all if there's strong turbulence during a flight.
However, I'm quite cautious about it during take off-initial climb/landing-final approach phases, as a sudden loss of altitude in those moments can be critical for obvious reasons.

Quoting FlyMKG (Thread starter): I remember seeing something on this board about clear air turbulence and some plane over Japan

Yep - the link that OPNLguy posted provides information about that flight (5th of March, 1966). Apparently, CAT (from Mt. Fuji) completely ripped the plane apart in midair. I read about it in an Air Disaster book.

If a commercial aircraft today is not at a critical phase in flight like takeoff or landing, without a major structual flaw or poor crew decisions (the latter being virtually impossible as any kind of airline flight crew worth anything knows how to deal with turbulence) a plane just magically falling from the sky because of turbulence is virtually impossible. Aircraft are built to withstand pressures in flights to degrees that never occur in the atmosphere.

Quoting IBERIA747 (Reply 3): What about the Delta L1011 that crashed during final approach to DFW upon entering a microburst?

Quoting IBERIA747 (Reply 3): There was also a USAir B737 that crashed during approach too.

IIRC these were both due to windshear and not turbulence. They are not quite the same.

Anybody interested in this subject should read some of MacAurthur Job's books - Air Disasters vol 1,2,3,4. I remember reading one incident in which a Northwest 720 took off from Miami and broke up shortly after takeoff due to turbulence (I believe crew overcontroll might have been a factor) encountered around thunderstorms.

LPLAspotter

Quoting Starlionblue (Reply 6): these were both due to windshear and not turbulence

Isn't turbulence also caused by windshear? Windshear is just wind...and wind causes turbulence, doesn't it?.

Quoting Starlionblue (Reply 6): IIRC these were both due to windshear and not turbulence. They are not quite the same

I'm not sure if windshear actually caused USAir 427 to crash. At least, I don't think they proved that it was the ultimate cause (I could be wrong though). Wasn't it the rudder that experienced an uncommanded deflection? Because of that crash Boeing mandated a rudder update on all 737s (prior to the NGs).

Quoting IBERIA747 (Reply 8): Isn't turbulence also caused by windshear? Windshear is just wind...and wind causes turbulence, doesn't it?.

Well, yes, but they are normally considered different by pilots. Turbulence is random bumpiness. Windshear is a sudden change in wind direction. I'm sure someone in tech_ops can explain it better  

There was also a USAir B737 that crashed during approach too.

I'm not sure if windshear actually caused USAir 427 to crash.

The windshear accident was USAir 1016, a DC-9-32 at CLT.

The Usair 737-300 was flight 427 ORD-PIT back in 1994 and was caused by wake turbulence from a 727 and as well improper pilot use of the rudders.