NWA Flight 22 from Narita to Honolulu encountered “moderate” turbulence near Midway Island on 22 January (apparently around 16 UTC). There were several injuries:
A little bird told me that no PIREP was reported to PHNL, but the National Weather Service forecasters learned of this event from media reports! Isn’t there some requirement for pilots to submit a PIREP of turbulence if there are injuries – or is there an effort to keep such events hush-hush so that no unscheduled aircraft inspections are required?
Meteorologically-speaking:
A quick look at the GOES-11 imagery didn’t show anything all that remarkable – no blatant WV signatures that are normally associated with turbulence (though there was a nice-looking “baroclinic leaf” forming not far to the northwest), but there certainly was a cluster of rapidly-developing convection near Midway Island. Here’s a NOAA-15 InfraRed image not long after the supposed time of the turbulence event (coldest cloud top temp of around -76 C, located to the southeast of Midway Island):
However, three did seem to be a signature of strong diffluence indicated by the MT-SAT infra-red satellite winds over the developing convective cluster at 14 UTC:
Guilty as charged. I’m a research meteorologist, specializing in satellite imagery…and some of our projects deal with aviation-related forecasting. Hence my interest in turbulence cases.
I’m a research meteorologist, specializing in satellite imagery…and some of our projects deal with aviation-related forecasting. Hence my interest in turbulence cases.
