Flight from Los Angeles sent into nosedive for 10 seconds after hitting vortex

quote:

---

Passengers have described the terrifying moment a vortex sent their Qantas flight into a 10-second “nosedive.”

---

quote:

---

The dramatic ordeal afflicting passengers on the QF94 from Los Angeles to Melbourne is understood to have been caused by the vortex, or “wake turbulence” caused by another aircraft which took off just two minutes earlier.

---

quote:

---

QF94 passenger Janelle Wilson told The Australian the “three-quarters-full” plane suddenly entered a “free fall nosedive … a direct decline towards the ocean” for about 10 seconds.

---

quote:

---

“It was between 1½ and two hours after we left LA and all of a sudden the plane went through a violent turbulence and then completely up-ended and we were nose­diving,”

---

quote:

---

“We were all lifted from our seats immediately and we were in a free fall. It was that feeling like when you are at the top of a rollercoaster and you’ve just gone over the edge of the peak and you start heading down.

---

quote:

---

“It was an absolute sense of losing your stomach and that we were nosediving. The lady sitting next to me and I screamed and held hands and just waited but thought with absolute certainty that we were going to crash. It was terrifying.”

---

quote:

---

According to flight safety experts at SKYbrary, wake vortexes cause severe turbulence, which is generated by the passage of another aircraft in flight. Basically, there is not sufficient separation between the flights.

---