Air India flight turbulence renews safety concerns as climate change increases risks

The Air India Phuket-Delhi flight that suddenly dropped nearly 300 feet over Odisha and injured passengers and crew has renewed concerns about turbulence. With climate change potentially increasing turbulence over India, experts stress one simple precaution: passengers should keep their seat belts fastened whenever they are seated.

An Air India flight from Phuket to Delhi suddenly lost nearly 300 feet while flying over Odisha this week, injuring four cabin crew members and more than a dozen passengers. The incident has once again highlighted a risk that passengers cannot always see coming: turbulence. As India adds more first-time flyers and climate change alters weather patterns, aviation safety experts increasingly stress one basic precaution: keep the seat belt fastened throughout the flight, a TOI report stated.

For most people, turbulence is little more than a few seconds of shaking. But severe turbulence can throw passengers out of their seats, send objects flying across the cabin and cause serious injuries.

Unlike an aircraft accident during take-off or landing, turbulence is something regular flyers are far more likely to encounter. And the risk is not limited to India.

In May 2024, a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777 travelling from London to Singapore encountered severe turbulence over Myanmar. A passenger with a heart condition suffered heart failure and died, while nearly 80 others were injured.

A year later, in July 2025, a Delta Air Lines flight flying from Salt Lake City encountered turbulence at 37,000 feet. Food and service carts were thrown around the cabin and several passengers needed hospital treatment. In the US, turbulence caused more than 200 serious injuries between 2009 and 2024, with the number increasing over time.

For Indian passengers, the risk becomes particularly relevant during the hot months and the monsoon season.

Why turbulence becomes common in India

India's weather creates two broad types of turbulence that aircraft regularly encounter.

The first is linked to thunderstorms and large clouds. As the land heats up from April through mid-June, warm, moisture-filled air rises into cooler layers of the atmosphere. The process can produce enormous cumulonimbus clouds, which may rise beyond 50,000 feet.

These clouds can contain powerful updrafts and downdrafts, lightning and hail. At times, several storm cells join together to form what pilots call a squall line.

The Chota Nagpur Plateau and surrounding areas covering Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Bengal and Odisha are particularly familiar with these fast-forming storms. They are known locally as Nor’westers or Kal Baisakhi and often develop during the afternoon or early evening.

This type of turbulence is known as convective turbulence.

There is at least one advantage for pilots: it can generally be detected by weather radar. On cockpit screens, intense weather often appears as a magenta area, allowing pilots to identify dangerous clouds and alter their route.

But not every form of turbulence offers that warning.

The turbulence pilots cannot see

Clear-air turbulence, or CAT, is more difficult because there may be no visible cloud or weather system around it.

It is associated with jet streams, which are narrow bands of very fast winds at high altitudes. When wind speed or direction changes sharply between different layers of air, strong wind shear can develop.

Clear-air turbulence generally occurs above 15,000 feet. Since there is no cloud involved, passengers cannot see it and an aircraft's weather radar cannot detect it in the same way it identifies storm clouds.

Pilots instead depend on SIGMETs, or Significant Meteorological Information bulletins. These warnings are issued by meteorologists when atmospheric conditions suggest that areas of turbulence may develop.

However, true jet-stream CAT is more commonly associated with the mid-latitudes. That makes northern India more exposed because of its proximity to the jet stream.

Over peninsular and southern India, some incidents described as clear-air turbulence may actually be caused by small convective cells that develop quickly and do not yet contain enough moisture to show clearly on radar. Such conditions can become particularly difficult to identify at night or when an aircraft moves in and out of clouds.

India's first-time flyers face another challenge

India's aviation market has grown rapidly, bringing millions of new passengers into the skies. A large part of that growth has come from people flying for the first time.

For some of these passengers, the seat belt sign may still be viewed as something that matters mainly during take-off and landing. That can be a dangerous misunderstanding.

When the sign comes on, passengers are expected to buckle up. But turbulence can occur even when the sign is switched off, particularly during cruising altitude.

That makes passenger awareness an important part of aviation safety.

Airlines and regulators may need to go beyond the standard safety briefing and repeatedly explain why passengers should remain buckled up while seated. With turbulence becoming a more significant operational concern, passenger safety cannot depend only on the crew switching on the seat belt sign.

Climate change could make turbulence worse

There is another factor behind the growing concern: global warming.

Research from the University of Reading's Department of Meteorology has found that jet-stream wind shear over the North Atlantic has strengthened by more than 10% compared with the late 1970s, when satellite records began.

Climate projections suggest that clear-air turbulence could also increase over the Indian subcontinent in the coming decades.

Northern India is expected to see some of the strongest increases, particularly during periods that already bring challenging weather for Indian aviation. These include the pre-monsoon months from March to May and the monsoon period extending into July.

The problem is that weather radar cannot provide passengers with a warning when clear-air turbulence suddenly develops.

That is why the simplest precaution remains one of the most effective: keep the seat belt loosely fastened whenever you are sitting in your seat, even if the seat belt sign has been switched off.

Why passengers do not need to fear the aircraft breaking apart

Severe turbulence can look frightening from inside an aircraft, particularly when the wings appear to bend or the cabin starts shaking violently.

But commercial aircraft are designed to withstand forces much greater than those normally experienced during turbulence.

Before an aircraft enters passenger service, manufacturers test its structure extensively. Wings are subjected to loads well beyond normal operating conditions and are deliberately bent by several feet to demonstrate that the aircraft has sufficient structural strength.

So, when a passenger sees an aircraft wing flex during rough weather, that movement is not necessarily a sign that the aircraft is in danger. It is part of the way the aircraft has been designed to operate.

A 2025 Delhi-Srinagar flight provides another example. The aircraft encountered hail and suffered significant damage to its nose, but it landed safely and remained structurally sound.

For passengers, the bigger danger during turbulence is generally not the aircraft itself. It is what happens to people who are not secured in their seats.

The difference a seat belt can make

An incident involving a SpiceJet flight in 2022 shows how quickly turbulence can turn dangerous.

On May 1 that year, SpiceJet flight SG945 was descending from Mumbai towards Durgapur when it encountered severe turbulence. The pilots had already issued two seat belt warnings.

Some passengers who were not wearing their belts were thrown towards the ceiling. One passenger fell into the aisle and part of the ceiling came loose.

Fourteen passengers and three crew members were injured. Two people required intensive care. One of them, reportedly a first-time flyer, died almost five months later from complications linked to a spinal injury suffered during the incident.

The outcome was very different on an IndiGo flight travelling from Delhi to Srinagar in May 2025.

That aircraft also encountered severe turbulence and suffered serious damage to its nose. Yet no passenger was injured. The key difference was that passengers were believed to have been strapped into their seats when the turbulence struck.

The two incidents underline an important point. Turbulence itself cannot always be avoided, but the injuries it causes can sometimes be prevented.

The safest thing passengers can do

Turbulence has become the leading cause of in-flight injuries worldwide, while climate-related changes could increase the frequency of some forms of turbulence.

Indian airlines operate through areas where turbulence can be common, including the Bay of Bengal and the skies over central and northern India during the pre-monsoon and monsoon periods.

The country's rapidly expanding passenger base makes safety awareness even more important.

The US Federal Aviation Administration recommends some straightforward precautions: passengers should keep their seat belts fastened when instructed, follow crew directions and ensure that carry-on items are properly secured.

The recent turbulence incidents involving Indian flights show why those instructions matter.

An aircraft may be engineered to withstand severe turbulence, but an unsecured passenger cannot withstand being thrown several feet into the air in the same way.

The seat belt sign does not always give passengers enough warning. Convective turbulence can often be detected by cockpit radar, but clear-air turbulence can strike without appearing on the screen.

That leaves passengers with one simple line of defence.

Keep the seat belt fastened whenever you are seated, even when the sign is off.