Most airliners that went down to turbulence, went down because of clear air turbulence (example: BOAC Flight 911, in 1966. It was a 707). This is not visible on a plane's weather radar and that has me concerned..that there could suddenly be a patch of air so rough the tail fin snaps off a plane and it crashes. Do airlines forecast clear air turbulence and make pilots avoid the clear air turbulence that could be severe enough to break the plane?Almost 20 years ago, a commercial airplane came apart in turbulence which killed over 250 people. The turbulence (caused by a jumbo jet that was flying a few miles ahead) made the plane lurch side to side which tore the tail fin and engines off. It was at 2,000 - 3,000 feet when it happened and apparently the sideways g forces were up to 0.8 g, and other g forces increased to 5g after the fin tore off, ripping off both engines.I was also pretty unhappy to hear that more modern airplanes are designed to tolerate less G's.. I found a document on the BOAC 911 crash saying that the Boeing 707 could withstand up to 6 G's before breaking, so I wondered if newer planes could withstand more. But no.. the 777 is only designed to withstand 3.8 G's before the wing breaks (because a stronger plane would be heavier and less fuel efficient). Before anyone says ''the 777 can withstand more than that'' - no, 3.8 G is the ultimate G load for the 777, the wing flex tests simulated 2.5 G (limit load), then they went to 154% of limit load which is 3.8 G. That's the point where the wings snapped.The past few days I've been having nightmares about this where we're flying way over the clouds then suddenly out of nowhere the plane encounters turbulence which snaps off the wings and tail and we just go spiraling down from 35,000 feet into the ocean
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