Heavy Turbulence on Flights Is Likely to Get Worse

Flights headed to Honolulu, Tampa, Fla., and Frankfurt in recent months hit turbulence so severe that some passengers and crew ended up in the hospital with injuries.

Actor Matthew McConaughey was a passenger on the Lufthansa flight to Germany. In a recent podcast interview with Kelly Ripa, he described seeing red wine suspended in midair before it crashed down.

“It was a hell of a scare,” Mr. McConaughey, who wasn’t hospitalised, said on the podcast. “A complete loss of control.”

Pilots and meteorologists say bumps are a normal part of flying. The Federal Aviation Administration is still investigating the Lufthansa flight. But meteorologists say climate change is distorting the jet stream, making a certain type of severe turbulence—called clear-air turbulence—more likely in the future.

Severe turbulence injuries are rare. Between 2009 and 2022, 163 people were seriously injured during turbulence, according to National Transportation Safety Board data. Flight attendants, who are more likely to be standing during flights, are most likely to get injured, the data show.

What the science says

Though technology that reports turbulence has vastly improved in recent decades, it can be tough to predict.

“You’re talking about a little pin drop in the atmosphere,” says Bill Duncan, head of aviation forecasting operations at the Weather Co., which supplies turbulence forecasts and weather insights to major airlines.

Turbulence happens when swirling air currents push against the wing of the plane, which then moves the wings up and down or the body of the plane from side to side, says Paul D. Williams, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Reading in England.

Atmospheric pressure, changing wind direction, air around mountains and cold- or warm-weather fronts can cause turbulence, physicists say.

Turbulence caused by wind shear, meaning sudden changes in the speed and direction of wind, is called clear-air turbulence. It is called this because it occurs at higher altitudes in cloudless areas. Aircraft can change altitude suddenly, and pilots usually can’t detect this type of turbulence in advance.

Since 1979, the amount of wind shear in the jet stream has increased 15%, according to a study Dr. Williams co-wrote that was published in the science journal Nature in 2019. At higher altitudes where planes fly, climate change is altering temperature patterns, which creates more wind shear, he says.

Dr. Williams’s research predicts that the amount of clear-air turbulence in the atmosphere in the mid-Northern Hemisphere is expected to more than double over the next three to six decades.

Some of the more popular international flight routes from the U.S., such as New York-London and San Francisco-Tokyo, will experience more clear-air turbulence because they fly in the mid-Northern Hemisphere, he says.

Changes in procedure

Flight crews now use more specific language to address different levels of turbulence, says Dennis Tajer, a captain for American Airlines and spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, a union. He began flying for commercial airlines about 30 years ago and says he encounters more clear-air turbulence now compared with early in his career.

American Airlines updated its flight manual in May 2022 to better define turbulence procedures for flight crews. The captain turns on the seat belt sign for all types of turbulence, but crews now take specific actions depending on the severity of the turbulence, he says.

During severe turbulence, flight attendants need to secure carts, place hot liquids in carts or on the floor and secure themselves as quickly as possible by sitting down in the nearest seat or on the floor.

American and United are among the airlines that give pilots access to software called SkyPath, which crowdsources turbulence reports from pilots’ iPads in real time.

SkyPath uses vibrations from the pilot’s iPad to measure turbulence and reports out to other nearby aircraft, providing advance warning of the conditions in real time, a United spokeswoman said in an email.

Tips for navigating turbulence

Wear your seat belt. Staying strapped in is the best way to protect yourself if your flight hits unexpected turbulence, pilots and flight attendants say.
Take precautions with children under 2. The FAA recommends passengers use an approved child-safety seat or device if traveling with a child under 2. Airlines don’t require children that young to have their own seats. Sara Nelson, the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, and the union have renewed calls for all passengers to have their own seats.
Secure your electronics and other hand-held devices. Anything that isn’t tied down can become a projectile, Ms. Nelson says.
Remember the odds. Turbulence is scary because it is often unexpected and uncomfortable, says Todd Farchione, a clinical psychologist at Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders. Take a deep breath and realise you’re not truly in danger. Planes are built to withstand even heavy turbulence, pilots and physicists say.

Elon Musk has engineered ties between Tesla TSLA 3.41%increase; up pointing triangle and SpaceX SPCX 7.79%increase; up pointing triangle that are hard to break, and now he wants to fuse them together permanently.

Musk has run both Tesla and SpaceX concurrently over the past two decades, using a schedule that dictated which days he spent focused on each business.

The companies have often shared resources and personnel, signaling their close ties. Last year, SpaceX looked into creating a spacesuit for Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus, a person familiar with the matter said. Tesla last week showed off its new Roadster, a vehicle featuring SpaceX rocket thrusters that it hopes to soon bring to market.

And in recent months, Musk has repositioned both companies by expanding beyond their core operations toward a shared mission centered on artificial intelligence.

The world’s richest man on Tuesday signaled his interest in tying up SpaceX and Tesla, marking what would be the biggest corporate merger of all time. Because he serves as chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla, Musk said committees of independent directors at both companies are evaluating a possible deal, adding that a transaction might not come to fruition.

The committees will likely evaluate, with lawyers and bankers, how each company would fare in a potential deal and how a deal might best be structured. They then present their conclusions to their respective boards, who typically vote on whether to proceed.

“It’s an odd Kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can’t be in the conversation,” Musk told SpaceX investors on Tuesday in response to an analyst’s question about a potential deal.

For Musk, the merger supports his vision of a world full of autonomous cars, humanoid robots and weekly rocket launches, as well as the data centers and satellites required to keep the whole thing running.

Some investors and analysts said they expect a transaction would be structured as an all-stock deal, with SpaceX potentially paying a modest premium for Tesla shares.

SpaceX, which has a market value of about $2 trillion, said it is seeing sharp growth in revenue across its businesses, which include operating data centers, launching rockets and operating satellite networks such as the internet service Starlink. Tesla is valued at about $1.5 trillion and is expanding its operations beyond its automotive and energy business. Shares in both companies traded higher following the news Tuesday.

The SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy v3 Booster lift off from the launch complex in Starbase, Texas, framed by silhouetted plants in the foreground. — A test flight from the SpaceX launch complex in Starbase, Texas. Steve Nesius/Reuters

Musk’s substantial ownership stakes in both companies, along with voting control at SpaceX, has enabled him to set the deal in motion. Analysts and investors said the deal will probably face regulatory scrutiny internationally, though some see Musk’s close relationship with the Trump administration as an asset to getting approval.

Blurred lines

The companies haven’t said which directors are on the special committees evaluating a potential deal. Several SpaceX and Tesla board members have either personal or business ties to Musk. And like Musk, venture capitalist Ira Ehrenpreis sits on both boards.

In a filing this week, Tesla outlined millions of dollars in business agreements with SpaceX and its subsidiaries last year, including $143 million in car sales to SpaceX, $3.3 million in advertising that it bought on the social-media platform X and $430 million in revenue from the sale of Megapack batteries for SpaceX’s data centers.

The companies also split the cost of resources including the use of Musk’s SpaceX jet and the bill for his personal security, which he runs through a private company.

Employees at both companies routinely move between companies to work on special projects, and some executives have dual roles, including Charles Kuehmann, vice president of materials engineering at both SpaceX and Tesla, and Ashok Elluswamy, the vice president of AI software at Tesla who runs a joint venture with SpaceX called Digital Optimus.

Over the years, Musk has launched new startups within his empire, including brain-implant company Neuralink, underground-tunnel developer the Boring Company and xAI, the AI startup that merged with SpaceX in February.

It is that AI business that Musk thinks can serve a market worth tens of trillions of dollars, justifying the need for a merger.

The business case goes like this: Tesla is developing robotaxis and robots, which it calls “physical AI.” SpaceX is working on the back end of physical AI: the data-center capacity and internet connection required for those robotaxis and robots to operate continuously.

Tesla Optimus humanoid robots and a Cybercab autonomous vehicle on display. — A Tesla Cybercab autonomous driverless vehicle and Optimus humanoid robots. Benjamin Girette/Bloomberg News

“I don’t see what the value of Tesla is if it’s not merged with SpaceX,” said investment adviser Ross Gerber, a former Tesla bull turned critic invested in both companies. “If they don’t merge, the brains of everything that runs Tesla is owned by another company.”

On top of it all, both companies face constraints on the supply chains they need to make this world a reality, particularly when it comes to chips. To address this, Musk earlier this year announced a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and Intel to design and manufacture chips in Texas. “The most epic chip-building exercise by far,” he has said.

Musk at the wheel

For Musk, a merger would also solve two problems: demands on his attention and his lack of control at Tesla.

Tesla for years was Musk’s only public company, a status that came with greater scrutiny. There, Musk reports to a public board, as well as individual investors who make up around 30% of Tesla’s voting power, according to FactSet.

The question of Musk’s attention became a particular focus for investors and the board in recent years after he acquired Twitter in 2022 and launched xAI in 2023, and again in 2025 as he spent time in Washington, D.C., running the Department of Government Efficiency in the early months of President Trump’s second term.

As Tesla’s car business suffered in 2025, Musk threatened to take his AI ambitions outside the company if he wasn’t granted 25% voting control. Last November, Tesla shareholders approved a new pay package for Musk, which created a path for him to vastly expand his stake.

As of Sept. 30, Musk owned a roughly 20% stake in Tesla, according to the company’s proxy filing.

The SpaceX IPO gave Musk a different path. When SpaceX went public in June, the deal’s structure enabled him to have more than 80% voting power at the company—so much that he can’t be fired and decisions can’t be made without his support.

If SpaceX acquires Tesla, he will likely stay in control.