On Friday, Oct. 9, severe turbulence hit New York-bound Avianca Flight 42. The Airbus A320 dropped 25,000 feet in a matter of minutes and at least nine people onboard were hospitalized.
It’s not in your imagination: extreme turbulence is on the rise.
But a handful of companies are developing ingenious technologies to help pilots escape these terrifying bumps.
Violent turbulence is happening more often for a simple reason. “We’re outputting more energy…we’re stirring up the atmosphere,” said Dr. Paul Williams, a professor of atmospheric science and head of the department of meteorology at the University of Reading. “No part of the planet is immune.”
Williams cited a report in one of the world’s leading geophysical journals that found there’s 55% more turbulence over the North Atlantic today than in the 1970s and 44% more above America.
“That’s pretty catastrophic,” Williams said.
The solutions to counter these emergencies range from high to low tech.
One startup, the aptly named Turbulence Solutions, is developing a system of computerized “flaplets” that can be added to an airplane’s wings. The system reads wind conditions in real time and adjusts the wings’ shape accordingly, allowing the plane to ride with turbulence rather than fight against it.
“If you’re driving a car, you can look up the street to see [where the potholes are] and prepare for them,” said Andras Galffy, the company’s CEO. “We make turbulence visible, then [provide the technology] to counter the motion.”
Even the smallest planes that Turbulence Solutions works on fly at over 100 miles per hour. That leaves only about two milliseconds — or .002 seconds — for the wings to adjust.
The technology has proven effective on two-seater planes. Galffy said he expects certification on “puddle jumpers” by 2028 and airliners by 2040.
Customers who cannot wait that long can look to AI.
Companies such as SkyPath are developing AI-powered weather-mapping software to help pilots avoid turbulence before their planes are in its throes.
SkyPath began as a crowd-sourcing company that compiled meteorological data for pilots much like Waze compiles traffic data for drivers. In recent years, they’ve begun using machine learning to create even more data.
Just about every pilot and first officer carries an iPad onboard, and SkyPath uses the devices’ built-in sensors to track vibration and interpret atmosphere conditions. This info, plus more than 100 meteorological parameters, are fed into an AI model that anticipates new turbulence events with a self-reported 90% accuracy. The findings are shown in an always-updating map inside the app.
“We have billions of data points from aircraft and satellites, we have high resolution atmospheric models and we have artificial intelligence blending [all the data into one holistic] picture,” said Dr. Williams, who also serves as an advisor to SkyPath.
Pilots use the data to fly around bumpy areas and better prepare passengers when turbulence is unavoidable. According to Maya Shpak, SkyPath’s CEO, the company has “reduced encounters of moderate turbulence by [more than] 50%.”
SkyPath partners with leading airliners across the globe including American, Southwest, Singapore and Emirates. To date, 130,000 pilots have subscribed and the platform is used on about 40,000 flights every day.
Even more high-tech is the work of Ricardo Vinuesa, a University of Michigan researcher deploying AI to design aircraft that can fly straight through turbulence without passengers feeling a thing.
Historically, engineers tested plane designs with models inside wind tunnels. Even aided by computers, the work was time- and labor-intensive.
Vinuesa’s AI model compiles the millions of data points collected from wind tunnels over the years into what he calls a “mega model.” It determines how the shape of different plane parts respond to wildly varying wind and weather conditions. The process is exponentially more efficient.
“[No longer do we have to] wait days or weeks until simulations are finished,” Vinuesa said. “Our system has the answer in seconds. It’s revolutionary.”
Vinuesa estimates his team will be integrating their findings into design pipelines within two to three years. They’re already working with some of the world’s leading flight providers, though he can’t yet say which ones.
Airlines are discovering common-sense, low-tech fixes too.
In 2024, Singapore Airlines stopped serving hot drinks and meals when the seatbelt sign was on, reducing the risk of piping-hot Mee Siam noodles splashing around the cabin.
That same year, Southwest began preparing the cabin for arrival — returning passengers to their seats, stowing away tray tables — at 18,000 feet rather than 10,000.
But perhaps the most intriguing idea comes from the eggheads at NASA, who are lending their hand — or ear — to the task.
In the late 1990s, researchers Kumar Shams and Alan Zuckerwar began building a microphone for infrasonic sounds, which are far quieter than anything humans can hear. The tech was designed to detect tornadoes and earthquakes hundreds or thousands of miles away.
In recent decades, scientists began applying its capabilities to clear-air turbulence, which occurs in cloudless regions and is nearly impossible to predict.
The technology isn’t yet standard on commercial planes, but versions of the microphone have been shown to work at high altitudes by Stratodynamics, a NASA partner, as well as the National Research Council in Canada.
Using the microphones to find and “fly around turbulence may be feasible,” said Chester Dolph, the aerospace engineer who took over Shams and Zuckerwar’s lab at NASA’s Langley Research Center after the original researchers died. Or, “the pilot hits the fasten seat belt sign five seconds [faster] … that might just be enough.”