- Captain Emma Henderson MBE was a pilot for easyJet for over a decade.
- She told Business Insider passengers should keep their seat belts on at all times to avoid injury.
- A Singapore Airlines flight was hit by extreme turbulence and one passenger died.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Emma Henderson MBE, a former easyJet pilot. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I'm a former airline captain. I started flying 30 years ago when I was at university.
I became a first officer at easyJet in 2009 and worked there for 11 years until I took voluntary redundancy in 2020.
The Singapore Airlines incident this week is a reminder that passengers should always wear a seat belt when flying, even if the seat-belt sign is off.
This is for people's safety. The basic truth is that an aircraft is a hard surface and people are soft.
Turbulence does happen, and when the aircraft moves around, if you're not strapped into your seat, you can move out of it.
A sudden movement of the aircraft down will result in your body briefly staying where it is before catching up to the plane, putting you at risk for an impact injury if you're not strapped in.
Turbulence can be unexpected
Aircraft are equipped with weather radar, which shows what's ahead of you. If there's water ahead, it paints it as a certain color on a screen; if there are hailstones ahead, it paints it as a different color.
Some of the weather-radar systems on the newer aircraft that I operated can also show thunderstorms and turbulence.
However, it's not possible to see everything all of the time.
The reason it's recommended that people fasten their seat belts during the flight, even when the seat-belt signs are switched off, is because anything can happen at any time.
Even if you're flying in very clear air with good visibility all around you, an aircraft might have crossed your path a couple of miles ago and you could fly through their wake and get a slight jolt.
Putting on a seat belt means if anything should happen, you're much less likely to become injured.
Singapore Airlines incident
What happened with the Singapore Airlines flight was an extreme case. It's very unusual for something like this to happen in such a way.
When flying in an area like that, you're flying through areas with a lot of high-energy air movement and thunderstorm activity. And at this time of year, there's a lot of heat and moisture in the atmosphere.
So sometimes you might be flying through weather and become aware that there's a risk, but that risk is not immediately visible.
You can't climb above the clouds in that situation, and sometimes you just have to punch through them. You avoid the worst areas, but you can't see everything.
If you're flying in an area where there are very few other flights around, there's less information available. So it's unsurprising that something like this could happen and take people unawares.
Pilots are trained to deal with situations like this. It's a testament to the high caliber of training the Singapore Airlines pilots received that even though they knew there were injured people and one fatality on board, they were able to land safely in Bangkok.
They still brought that aircraft to a safe landing. Their training kicked in; that's what you have to do.
My own experiences with turbulence
I've never encountered anything like what happened yesterday because it's so rare.
There are three different types of turbulence: light, moderate, and severe.
I have experienced moderate turbulence while descending through bad weather into Geneva, for example.
If you have to land somewhere, you don't have much choice. You will divert around as much of it as you can, but at some point, you may have to fly through quite bumpy weather.
When you're in the flight deck and that's happening, you have complete confidence in your aircraft because you know it can withstand the extreme forces it can be subjected to.
You trust your instruments, your aircraft, your instinct, and your skill.
Even after the Singapore Airlines incident, I wouldn't worry about flying because I knew what happened was so unusual.
I know the aircraft can withstand those forces. Because I know everything about what happens on a flight, I don't worry about it.