If we are caught in an earthquake while flying, will the plane shake?

Air travel is a source of great fear for some of us. Besides this Various situations such as turbulence and earthquake When added, things get more complicated.

Bride What will happen if we get caught in an earthquake while flying? Let’s take a closer look.

Basically, earthquakes emit seismic waves in the form of pressure (P) and shear waves (S).

While S waves can only propagate in solid environments, P waves can They are transferred to other media such as liquids and gases. In this way, they can move towards the atmosphere.

When they do this, they usually hear the lower threshold for human hearing. They become sound waves recorded below 20 hertz. That’s why they can’t be heard.

But these waves become weaker the further they travel through the air.

This is a process called attenuation and basically, as you move away from them objects make less noise it causes.

For this reason, a plane flying over an earthquake, even if it is severe, does not feel the following vibrations. When the P waves pass through the rock and then the air, they will be drowned out by the noise and motion of the aircraft itself.

However, this still does not mean that planes are immune from risks when an earthquake occurs.

Passengers do not feel an earthquake during the flight due to shaking, but this natural disaster ground base power outage This causes malfunctions in the aircraft’s navigation equipment.

The power outage also caused air traffic control to lose its radar signal and The location of the aircraft cannot be determined in case of a possible emergency. may cause.

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