Experts named the air routes where turbulence was most often recorded in 2023. Fortunately, there were no flights to Russia among them, but tourists traveling to Asia and Europe have something to pay attention to.
Turbulence is the worst part of flying for many people. Although this phenomenon occurs regularly, it often causes anxiety and instills fear even in the most experienced travelers. According to statistics from the US Federal Aviation Administration, severe turbulence occurs on only one flight out of 50,000 flights.
Over the past 16 years in the United States, the average number of injuries associated with severe turbulence is 33 per year. However, most injuries occur when people are not wearing seat belts.
MOST OFTEN SHAKES ON THE FLIGHT WHEN FLYING FROM CHILE TO COLOMBIA
The editorial board of the specialized portal Turbli, which is engaged in forecasting turbulence, analyzed about 150,000 air routes around the world and compiled the TOP 10 most turbulent routes of 2023.
Routes are ranked by the “vortex dispersion rate”, which Turbli founder Ignacio Gallego Marcos describes as “a measure of the intensity of turbulence at a given point.”
So, according to the conclusions of experts, the flight length is almost 3,000 km between Santiago, the capital of Chile, and the city of Santa Cruz in Bolivia is the most turbulent in the world according to observations for 2023.
In second place in terms of the number of such phenomena is the route between Almaty in Kazakhstan and Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan.
The route Lanzhou – Chengdu in China, the route from the airport is also in the top five in terms of the number of cases of turbulenceNagoya (Aichi Prefecture) to the city Sendai (Miyagi Prefecture) in Japan, as well as the flight from Milan to Geneva, which is called the most turbulent in Europe.
Also in the TOP 10 in terms of the number of turbulent phenomena are three domestic routes in China, including flights from Xi’an to Lanzhou, Chengdu and Chongqing, another route to Japan (Osaka – Sendai), as well as an air route between Milan and Zurich.
As experts explain, routes through the Andes or Alps occupy high places in the ranking due to the passage of air currents over mountainous terrain, whereas routes in Japan and China are restless due to the “high activity of air masses” at an altitude of 8-10 km above the Earth’s surface, which move from west to east.
Elena Myagkova
