On January 16, 2014, United Airlines flight 89 from Newark to Beijing departed at 12:55 p.m. Eastern, carrying 189 passengers and 16 crew members. Forty-five minutes into the flight, food and beverage service had just begun when the plane began to experience severe turbulence. Pilots were not expecting turbulence of that nature; it was so severe that it injured five flight attendants and the plane had to return to the Newark Liberty International Airport. The aviation industry is in need of flight weather hazards forecasts that are timely, targeted, and not dependent on operations and planning managers to interpret potentially dangerous and costly situations. Our newest, patented model delivers better-defined turbulence, icing, and thunderstorm forecasts more frequently, based on global weather data models and a high definition U.S. model, which help to reduce the need for interpretation. Author: John Thivierge

1. Review and analysis
of a January 16, 2014,
major turbulence event
Author:
John Thivierge

2. 2
Major turbulence
event analysis

3. Review and analysis of a January 16, 2014, major turbulence event
On January 16, 2014, United Airlines flight 89 from
Newark to Beijing departed at 12:55 p.m. Eastern,
carrying 189 passengers and 16 crew members.
Forty-five minutes into the flight, food and beverage
service had just begun when the plane began
to experience severe turbulence. Pilots were not
expecting turbulence of that nature; it was so severe
that it injured five flight attendants and the plane had
to return to the Newark Liberty International Airport.
Traditionally, air turbulence forecasts provide a
meteorologist’s interpretation of weather model data,
as well as real-time reporting from pilots, covering
broad areas and spans of time. In addition, relying
on reports from pilots means that flights still have
to experience turbulence in order for subsequent
flights to avoid those areas. Today’s forecasts are
divided into generic categories, with basic details
for light, moderate, or severe hazards. Additionally,
these forecasts cover large geographical areas
and altitude ranges. For example, a forecast could
read: moderate turbulence from FL250-400. With
information available over such widespread areas,
it forces flight planners, dispatchers, and pilots
to make assumptions and chance the severity of
turbulence they’ll encounter, or to route around large
areas, adding both time and fuel costs to the flight.
Pilots and flight planners need early, proactive
information in order to make routing decisions
before a plane is en route. With generic, unspecified
turbulence forecasts, pilots are unable to discern
genuine threats from manageable conditions, leading
to issues in the air. What if flight planners, operations
managers, and pilots had access to accurate, up-to-
date hazard forecasts — complete with aircraft and
altitude-specific information?
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Event analysis
At Schneider Electric, our
flight hazard forecast
solutions provide hourly
high resolution turbulence,
icing, and thunderstorm
forecasts based on
multiple global weather
models. This approach
is opposed to traditional
forecasts offered today
that are only issued a few
times daily and cover
large generically-defined
areas. Our solution offers
continuously-updated,
detailed geographic alerts
that allow flight planners
and pilots to proactively
preplan and avoid flight
hazards while airborne.
At the time of the incident, radar images were clear (as
shown here), and although other pilots had reported
turbulence in the area, they were at different altitudes and
flight paths. As a result, the crew of United Airlines flight 89
did not have specific information to show the severity of
the turbulence they would encounter.
This image shows the SIGMETs for turbulence at the
time of the event. Notice the large area of potential
turbulence over the East Coast issued for FL130-330.
This requires interpretation by both pilots and flight
planners due to the large geographical area, as well as
the large vertical component.
(Image provided by NOAA, ADDS)

4. Review and analysis of a January 16, 2014, major turbulence event
The aviation industry is in need of flight weather
hazards forecasts that are timely, targeted, and not
dependent on operations and planning managers to
interpret potentially dangerous and costly situations.
Our newest, patented model delivers better-defined
turbulence, icing, and thunderstorm forecasts more
frequently, based on global weather data models and
a high definition U.S. model, which help to reduce
the need for interpretation.
Available both in graphical and digital formats, it can
be used in flight following, planning, and decision
support systems to automatically optimize routes
based on user-defined variables. Airlines and aircraft
operators can plan less-circuitous routes, reducing
overall operating costs, fuel consumption, and CO2
emissions with digital integration of flight hazards
with numerous flight systems.
Our flight hazards forecast offers an industry-first
Eddy Dissipation Rate (EDR) based global turbulence
forecast that integrates mountain wave, boundary
layer, convective, and upper level clear air turbulence
into a single forecast product — the higher the EDR
number, the more violent the turbulence.
EDR is the universal measure of turbulence,
based on the rate at which energy dissipates in
the atmosphere. It is based on quantitative — not
qualitative — forecasts that are related to thresholds
set by aircraft manufacturers and define the specific
aircraft types at risk for certain types of turbulence.
The scale is from zero to one. An EDR of less than
0.10 is equivalent to no turbulence for most aircraft;
0.15 to 0.34 is light; 0.35 to 0.55 is moderate; and
greater than 0.55 is severe turbulence. Forecasts
can be identified for multiple flight levels, and are
displayed in a layered view to optimize flight levels.
We also include aircraft-specific icing forecasts
based on NASA research on ice accretion specific to
individual air foils. Models are updated frequently with
location-specific information and in a high-resolution
presentation. Additionally, the product contains a
global, radar-like thunderstorm forecast that helps
identify precise areas of convective activity, letting
pilots and planners know which areas to avoid.
The system is rooted in scientific calculations, not
interpretations of weather conditions.
Alerts are generated worldwide while the aircraft is
in the air, based on the aircraft operator’s specific
parameters along the planned route. This allows
a flight’s aircraft dispatcher and captain to decide
on the best, minimum-cost reroute during a flight
if forecast conditions suddenly change. Location-
specific alerts are exclusive to our organization.
Information can be integrated into existing flight
planning solutions, allowing flight planners to better
plan ahead — specifically for long-duration flights,
with forecasts that extend for more hours and are
updated more frequently.
Along with our weather forecasts deemed the most
accurate in the industry for the last seven years,
our single-source aviation weather solution vastly
improves awareness of adverse weather for flight
operations managers, flight planners, and pilots.
As a result, the interpretation traditionally needed
to determine hazards in the air can be minimized,
allowing aviation operations to optimize fuel and
operations costs, reduce the risk of aircraft damage,
and improve passenger comfort and safety.
The Schneider Electric solution
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5. Review and analysis of a January 16, 2014, major turbulence event
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Our team reviewed its forecasts for January 16,
2014, and found that our system’s flight hazards
forecast was able to predict the turbulence
experienced by United Airlines flight 89 up to
four hours in advance — more than enough
time to reroute the plane and save on the costs
and inconvenience of turning the plane back to
the airport. In addition, our forecasts show that
the turbulence decreased significantly at higher
altitudes, as opposed to the traditional turbulence
forecast for that day, which called for severe
turbulence from FL130-330.
A closer look
According to our forecast, United Airlines flight 89’s
flight path to get to cruising altitude at FL270 (shown
above) took the plane directly through a band of severe
turbulence, rated at 0.6 to 0.7 on the EDR scale.
The turbulence that day became less severe at higher
altitudes. Shown at right, at FL300, the turbulence values
on the flight path ranged from 0.4 to 0.5.

6. Review and analysis of a January 16, 2014, major turbulence event
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There is another significant drop in turbulence severity at
FL 320; now the forecast shows an EDR of 0.3.
Turbulence was forecasted to diminish almost entirely
above FL340.
Ultimately, our forecast shows that United Airlines flight 89
most likely could have avoided severe turbulence entirely
with a slight flight plan modification, flying more east of
the forecasted severe turbulence. A sample route change,
shown here, could have cut costs and ensured safety.

8. Schneider Electric USA, Inc.
9110 West Dodge Road
Omaha, NE 68114
Phone: 800-610-0777
Fax: 402-255-8125
www.schneider-electric.com/us
©2014SchneiderElectric.Allrightsreserved.
February 2014