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A number of years ago it was discovered that airplanes could
suddenly loose a lot of altitude when entering big,
mysterious 'air pockets'. It was thought that this was the
explanation for a number of mysterious airplane crashes like
Eastern Airlines flight 66.
In the beginning no one could believe this phenomenon
existed. It was simply not possible that there could be
‘pockets’ in the air or downward airstreams. What was
involved was not an ordinary turbulence, but severe pockets
in the air, causing sudden plane crashes. The phenomenon has
been noticed especially in cases where both the speed and
the altitude of an airplane have been low.
We already know that winds inside and around thunderclouds
can be unpredictable. Flying into such clouds is not
recommended.
It seems like thunder clouds (small low pressure systems)
work in the same way larger low pressures systems do. Around
small thunder storms low pressure air likely also circulates
about the centre and rises as it does so. This will lead to
a calm region in the centre of the storm.
If so, an aircraft flying into such a low pressure system
will first be supported by upwards moving winds, and shortly
after, when it enters the centre, the plane will suddenly
lose this support and instead be affected by a force in the
opposite direction. This means the aircraft may rapidly lose
altitude if flying at low speeds into a low pressure system
of an appreciable size. One could imagine that such an
affect could cause an aircraft to suddenly crash.
This could support the idea that the cause of weak low
pressure systems, like those which breed tornados, is not
well understood, as mentioned in the previous chapter on the
tornados. It also shows that something could have been
overlooked when it comes to our understanding of low
pressure systems on larger scales.
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