Flying over central Austrailia on Monday we had a little bit of excitement. The flight had been lovely and smooth for an hour or so and then all of a sudden the following happened:
1. A large bump and shaking
2. The plane suddenly dropped straight down a significant amount (I'm guessing 100s of feet)
3. The plane nosedived to the right at a 45 degree angle
The whole incident only took about 2-3 seconds. There wasn't really enough time to get scared. It was only when the plane leveled out that we realised that something very scary had happened.
About 5-10 minutes later, the copilot cut the movie and apologised for what had happened. He said that it was due to the wash from the wings of a 747 flying overhead around 1000m above us. He said that they had no instrumentation that could have predicted what had happened. He wanted to reassure us that they were in complete control of the aircraft the whole time. But there was something about what he said and the way that he said it that made me think that it was much more serious than he had let on.
Are there any knowledgeable types out there that can shed more light onto this ? You can obviously tell that I'm not looking forward to the 3 flights that I have to take later in the week to get back home !
NMH
What fucking cowboy airline did you fly with? All, and I repeat ALL, commercial airliners must be fitted with the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) to be able to fly commercial routes. Clearly the TCAS on your ac (and quite possibly the one on the 747) weren't working properly. There should be at least 1000 ft vertical minima separation between ac - I'm not really sure whether flying that close together (in height terms) has that dramatic an effect, depends which pilot you ask.
Cue the old adage - put ten pilots in a room, ask them one question, expect fifty different answers.
I'm about to jump on a plane in three hours. I truly hope my flight is substantially less eventful!
