Hurricanes, But Not Thunderstorms?

The tragedy and mystery of Air France flight 447 that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean of the coast of Brazil raises questions about the structural strength of aircraft and the force of meteorological events. Much of the speculation about why the Air France Airbus 330 fell from the sky centers on the severe thunderstorm it was apparently flying through at the time. There has been some thought that the storm was a major factor in the crash, either because lightning disrupted the aircraft's systems or the violence of the storm itself caused the airplane to break apart.

Anyone who has spent any time on commercial aircraft has flown through bad weather and turbulence. In those moments, as I clench the armrests and watch the wingtips waggle, I tell myself that people routinely and intentionally fly into hurricanes for the sake of science, and live to tell the story. Not only that, they do it in venerable old airplanes like my old friend, the P3 Orion. If that old bird can survive the violent winds and air pressure differentials of a hurricane, surely a modern jetliner can make it through any conventional storm that a professional pilot would see fit to fly in.

Or maybe not. With the Air France flight recorders thousands of feet below the surface of the ocean, we may never know exactly why it crashed. If weather played a part, though, the question becomes, how? Just how violent is a thunderstorm, and why is it that a relatively new airplane, as technologically advanced as any on the planet, could not survive it? Did the Air France flight run into the meteorological equivalent of a rogue wave, or is there something inherent in the construction of the Airbus that makes it vulnerable to unusually violent winds or lightning strikes? There is nothing in its history to suggest this possibility, and I would like to believe that the crash can be pinned on pilot error or a specific system that failed, rather than a general inability to survive being tossed about in a big storm.

As aircraft builders move toward new methods of construction (the structure of the forthcoming Boeing 787 will carbon fiber instead of aluminum), there may be new frontiers of structural strength and integrity yet to be probed. The manufacturers will have tested for every possibility, of course. Yet that did not stop a seemingly healthy A330 from falling out of the sky this week.