A346, en-route, northern Turkey, 2019

A346, en-route, northern Turkey, 2019

Summary

On 21 August 2019, an Airbus A340-600 encountered sudden-onset moderate to severe clear air turbulence whilst in the cruise at FL 360 over northern Turkey which resulted in a serious passenger injury. The Investigation found that the flight was above and in the vicinity of convective clouds exhibiting considerable vertical development but noted that neither the en-route forecast nor current alerting had given any indication that significant turbulence was likely to be encountered. It was noted the operator s flight crew had not been permitted to upload weather data in flight but since this event, that restriction had been removed.

Description

On 21 August 2019, an Airbus A340-600 (G-VFIT) being operated by Virgin Atlantic Airways on a scheduled international passenger flight from New Delhi to London Heathrow with an augmented crew was in the cruise in day IMC when it unexpectedly encountered transient moderate to severe turbulence whilst the seat belt signs were off. As a result one passenger sustained a serious injury and one member of the cabin crew a minor injury. The flight thereafter was completed without further event with a medical emergency declared for arrival and a priority approach granted.

Investigation

An investigation was carried out by the UK AAIB. Relevant recorded data was available from the FDR but that on the CVR had been overwritten. It was noted that the relief First Officer was acting as PF at the time of the event and the 54 year-old Captain, who had a total of 18,062 hours flying experience including 5,722 hours on type, had just returned from his rest period, as PM.

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