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Saturday evening a week ago, #1 son was flying from Omaha to Houston - a run he's made many times. This time they hit severe turbulence and hail south of Wichita KS. He said the plane was being tossed around like a toy - gaining and loosing hundreds of feet at a time (He said in one updraft, even with the nose pitched down 15deg the plane was still gaining altitude, then suddenly dropped several hundred feet. One seasoned United pilot was on board (deadheading) and commented later it was some of the worse turbulance he'd been in. Son was 1st Officer but was at the controls. The sound of hail was so loud that the two of them could not hear each other. Son was trying to ask AC if he wanted to declare an emergency, but the noise was such that the AC couldn't hear him, so son took it upon himself and called OK City (I think) to declare an emergency. They needed to do whatever was needed right away to get out of the crappy air. They ended up getting back to better air, but because they had declared emergency they still needed to land at nearest suitable airport (OK City). They also needed to land to have the plane checked out since they had a number of warning lights come on for both engines during the bad-air adventure. Besides which, the turbulance was bad enough that it caused them to "over-G" the plane.
Here's a couple screen shots from Flight radar 24 of that harrowing flight. I'm just glad they got everyone one the ground in one piece.
Here's a couple screen shots from Flight radar 24 of that harrowing flight. I'm just glad they got everyone one the ground in one piece.
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