Encountered Severe Weather Enroute Thread

[pelmet]

C-FHLG, a FLYGTA Airlines Inc. Cessna Citation II 550 was conducting flight TOR800 from
Pinehurst-Southern Pines/Moore County Airport (KSOP), NC to Kitchener/Region of Waterloo
International Airport (CYKF), ON. During cruise at FL270 at approximately 150 NM north of KSOP,
the flight came in contact with turbulent air accompanied by hail. The encounter with hail lasted
approximately 60 seconds. Once clear of the weather, the flight crew requested radar vectors from
ATC which enabled them to traverse the remaining weather without further incident. There were no
adverse engine or control anomalies noted by the flight crew and they continued to CYKF. The
remaining of the flight was uneventful. Subsequent inspection showed damages to both wings'
leading edges, nose radome and panels as well as windshields' bleed air ducts.
NTSB will not investigate this occurrence.

Date and time:
2023-04-06

18:00:00 UTC

Not sure how to overlay weather with flight track.

[Dry Guy]

I liked this board better when each thread was about an individual accident that was interesting to Canadian pilots.

[pelmet]

Thanks for the input. It is a valid point about separate threads for each accident/incident. I was wondering if anybody would comment on that.

But I found that it would lead to dozens of threads, many with no reply. Not sure if that is good or bad.

An potential advantage of the subject thread is it allow someone to search for a type of incident more easily.

Another advantage is that if there are Canadian pilots who do not find these particular accidents and incidents interesting(something mentioned by you), it is limited to less threads.

Anyways, I will keep the style for now but keep your comment in mind.

[timothyferriss]

Despite the damage, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) decided not to investigate the occurrence. retro bowl

[CpnCrunch]

If you look at the flight on flightaware, it shows the weather with the track, but it's too late now to see it for this flight unless you have a paid account.

It's a shame there is no way of detecting large frozen bits of water in the atmosphere. It might have saved them having to trash this plane.

[Eric Janson]

Another recent accident:-

https://avherald.com/h?article=518e5d47&opt=0

The event appears to be an inadvertent entry into a CB top.

Keep your seatbelts fastened while seated at all times - it's not difficult.

[pelmet]

Another recent accident:-

https://avherald.com/h?article=518e5d47&opt=0

The event appears to be an inadvertent entry into a CB top.

Keep your seatbelts fastened while seated at all times - it's not difficult.

I was suspecting that. Jetstream turbulence is not really encountered much around there(try Japan). Wonder if they were not paying attention to the radar. Same question about an AC turbulence encounter near Hawaii a couple of years ago.

[‘Bob’]

Despite the damage, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) decided not to investigate the occurrence. retro bowl

Why would they?

Nothing new can be learned from the incident. Use your radar and storm scope to avoid areas of convective activity.

[Eric Janson]

I was suspecting that. Jetstream turbulence is not really encountered much around there(try Japan). Wonder if they were not paying attention to the radar. Same question about an AC turbulence encounter near Hawaii a couple of years ago.

You are dealing with a phenomena called "Dry Tops" where the moisture in the top of the CB has frozen. As a result the top of the CB doesn't reflect radar energy well.

Quite common to see a few green flecks on the radar get more solid and change colour as you got closer.

Seen the radar range scales set far too high - 40 or 20 is what is required. Max gain as well.

[CL-Skadoo!]

I was suspecting that. Jetstream turbulence is not really encountered much around there(try Japan). Wonder if they were not paying attention to the radar. Same question about an AC turbulence encounter near Hawaii a couple of years ago.

You are dealing with a phenomena called "Dry Tops" where the moisture in the top of the CB has frozen. As a result the top of the CB doesn't reflect radar energy well.

Quite common to see a few green flecks on the radar get more solid and change colour as you got closer.

Seen the radar range scales set far too high - 40 or 20 is what is required. Max gain as well.

Therein lies the rub. Many companies aren't teaching weather radar techniques like they used to. I see pilots out there using these systems as "set and forget" type systems, instead of being proactive and trying to examine a system from many different modes, tilts and gains to see what's really going on.

Anyone remember Archie Trammall the radar guru?

[cjp]

https://safetyfirst.airbus.com/optimum- ... her-radar/

[Swampdonk]

My question is WTF are they cruising at FL 270. My time in a 550 was spent at the high 30’s and low 40’s. That much traffic down there they couldn’t get higher?

[pelmet]

I was suspecting that. Jetstream turbulence is not really encountered much around there(try Japan). Wonder if they were not paying attention to the radar. Same question about an AC turbulence encounter near Hawaii a couple of years ago.

You are dealing with a phenomena called "Dry Tops" where the moisture in the top of the CB has frozen. As a result the top of the CB doesn't reflect radar energy well.

Quite common to see a few green flecks on the radar get more solid and change colour as you got closer.

Seen the radar range scales set far too high - 40 or 20 is what is required. Max gain as well.

I like to get the deviation clearance quite early in some parts of the world, especially over the ocean. You may not even end up deviating but you have the clearance in hand instead of a mad scramble at the last minute. There have been times where I sent a Back On Course message where the aircraft did not have to deviate.

[itsgrosswhatinet]

Yeah radar on 20 miles is nuts

[pelmet]

Yeah radar on 20 miles is nuts

Oh yeah?

[Eric Janson]

@ cjp - thanks for the airbus article. Very useful info for people who only operate the radar in "Auto".

Just to add a few important things when dealing with severe weather:-

If you have the choice - go around the CB on the upwind side.

CB's can grow vertically at 5000'/min with the outflow extending above the visible cloud formation. Don't try to overfly a developing CB unless you are well above it.

The time to learn the capabilities of your weather radar is during VMC - compare the display with what you see outside and play with the gain and tilt to see the differences - jmho.

I've never had any formal training in using the weather radar - this is something that should be added to the training syllabus imho.

[pelmet]

@ cjp - thanks for the airbus article. Very useful info for people who only operate the radar in "Auto".

Just to add a few important things when dealing with severe weather:-

If you have the choice - go around the CB on the upwind side.

CB's can grow vertically at 5000'/min with the outflow extending above the visible cloud formation. Don't try to overfly a developing CB unless you are well above it.

The time to learn the capabilities of your weather radar is during VMC - compare the display with what you see outside and play with the gain and tilt to see the differences - jmho.

I've never had any formal training in using the weather radar - this is something that should be added to the training syllabus imho.

I never had any formal training either. And when you fly in the Arctic, you don't get much practice.

Then all of a sudden, you are thrown into the thunderstorm environment with some written material provided and what you can glean from the internet. And then there are all those different types of radars. Multi-scan, vertical profile, etc.

Fortunately, circumstances never materialized to put me in a bad position as I have never been comfortable with weather radar advanced techniques. I would manually tilt down at closer ranges sometimes in certain areas. It seems that oceanic thunderstorms do not show up overly well but on one type, we had a radar that knew you were over the ocean and would compensate. Except it would over-compensate, so we had a procedure to manually adjust what looked like a hopeless situation to a reasonable one. And after a situation where I couldn't get a timely deviation clearance over the ocean, started getting deviation clearances early and often if there was any chance of the need for one.

I have seen other guys wait until the last minute and then are unable to get a deviation clearance and have to deviate without a clearance. I remember one dickhead captain(was a chief pilot for a while) responded to my mention of a deviation clearance down in the US with a reply of....What? Are you scared? Five minutes later, he was deviating without a clearance because the frequency was really busy.

Then there are places like The US Midwest with huge hailstorms. Giant blobs of red one night off to our right(near 100 miles long) as we cruised along at night in smooth air with dinner service going on. Can you imagine hitting strong turbulence at such a time with all those girls in the back serving the meals?(That is what happened to SIA). The paranoia factor made me get a deviation even though we would miss the red blob by 15-20 miles. Not worth the risk. I had read about outflows causing turbulence from giant storms. Specifically, I had read this accident report 10-15 years earlier and remembered it....

https://www.fss.aero/accident-reports/d ... -24-US.pdf

How the hell does one recognize such a danger? I don't know. So, I deviated further away.

The next day news had this one that happened further to the west a few hours before I flew by....

https://www.google.ca/search?sca_esv=8a ... 12&bih=958

Sure, he got caught in hail trying to thread a needle between storms and that AC flight from long ago hit outflow turbulence exacerbated by a jetstream, and he probably was a lot more savvy with weather radar operation than me. But I felt satisfied that the paranoia factor made me cautious.