{"id":58028,"date":"2024-03-29T22:59:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T22:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=58028"},"modified":"2024-04-01T19:31:15","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T19:31:15","slug":"united-airlines-flight-85-diverted-after-encountering-extreme-turbulence-which-injured-22-passengers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/58028","title":{"rendered":"United Airlines Flight 85 diverted after encountering severe turbulence (which injured 22 passengers)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Final flight path of UAL85 (top) with plots of aircraft altitude and speed during its entire flight (bottom), from FlightAware.com<\/p><\/div>\n

United Airlines Flight 85 (UAL85) encountered severe turbulence as it was on approach to landing at Newark Liberty International Airport (KEWR) — which injured 22 passengers, with 7 of those being transported to a hospital (media report 1<\/strong><\/a> | media report 2<\/strong><\/a>) late in the day on 29 March 2024<\/strong><\/a>. Gusty NW winds may have contributed to the turbulence (which likely occurred around 2138 UTC, according to flight data<\/strong><\/a> from FlightAware<\/strong><\/a> — note the rapid rate of ascent beginning at that time); the peak wind gust at KEWR was 48 knots<\/strong><\/a> or 55 mph at 2039 UTC. After UAL85 aborted its landing at KEWR, it diverted north to New York Stewart International Airport (KSWF), landing at 2208 UTC (above)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector<\/strong><\/a> GOES-16 (GOES-East)<\/em> Low-level Water Vapor (7.3 \u00b5m<\/strong><\/a>) images (below)<\/strong><\/em> depicted widespread mountain waves across southeastern New York and northern New Jersey during that time. These mountain waves could also have played a role in creating boundary layer turbulence. The Pilot Report (PIREP) for this UAL85 incident did not appear in the real-time AWIPS data, probably due to time restraints imposed upon the flight crew to get the aircraft safely diverted as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

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1-minute GOES-16 Low-level Water Vapor (7.3 \u00b5m) images, from 2100-2200 UTC on 29 March [click to play animated GIF | MP4<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/div>In a faster animation of GOES-16 Water Vapor images without plots of surface reports (below)<\/strong><\/em>, note that the mountain wave structure across northern New Jersey (including near KEWR) becomes slightly deformed, and even begins to move westward a few miles.<\/p>\n

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1-minute GOES-16 Low-level Water Vapor (7.3 \u00b5m) images, from 2040-2200 UTC on 29 March [click to play animated GIF | MP4<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/div>A toggle between GOES-16 Water Vapor imagery and Topography (below)<\/strong><\/em> indicated that these mountain waves were forming downwind of the Catskills<\/strong><\/a> in New York and the Poconos<\/strong><\/a> in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

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GOES-16 Low-level Water Vapor (7.3 \u00b5m) image + Topography [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>Plots of rawinsonde data from Albany NY and Upton NY (below)<\/strong><\/em> both showed adiabatic or near-adiabatic lapse rates below the 800-850 hPa pressure level — which aided in the downward transport of momentum (stronger winds) aloft to the surface earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

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Plot of rawinsonde data from Albany NY at 0000 UTC on 30 March [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>\n

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Plot of rawinsonde data from Upton NY at 0000 UTC on 30 March [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

United Airlines Flight 85 (UAL85) encountered severe turbulence as it was on approach to landing at Newark Liberty International Airport (KEWR) — which injured 22 passengers, with 7 of those being transported to a hospital (media report 1 | media report 2) late in the day on 29 March 2024. Gusty NW winds may have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":58040,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation","category-goes-16"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58028"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58088,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58028\/revisions\/58088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}