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Lots of speculation as to why people didn’t talk about the experience. A few points should be made: - We don’t feel velocity, we feel acceleration/deceleration

Lots of speculation as to why people didn’t talk about the experience. A few points should be made: - We don’t feel velocity, we feel acceleration/deceleration. While a sudden drop would feel crazy, if the jet rolled out and into the dive it may be subtle enough initially that the free fall was hard to feel. The pull-up out of the dive probably would have been felt, but! If the pilot came on the intercom and talked about weather, or if the attending crew didn’t act odd after the event, people are less likely to assume something weird happened. Add to this the likelihood of IMC, as well as the likelihood that the crew warned of potential light turbulence - you’ll have a plane full of well-primed people who accepted the experience as “mostly normal.” Add to that that there wasn’t likely wifi for another 10min or so, people may forget pretty quickly… The graph looks wild, but people don’t feel that raw data. Perception is everything, and it is not that surprising that accounts of this event aren’t popping up like crazy.

colinmorelli 4y ago
This makes sense, but during takeoff in a plane of 100+ people, none of them happened to be looking out a window and notice that they were falling below the cloud cover and getting a lot closer to the ocean? Or were they still in the clouds? EDIT: Someone in another comment mentioned that ceilings were 800 feet, so passengers likely would not have noticed they were getting closer to the ocean at all.
mh- 4y ago
This CNN article suggests people definitely did feel it. > “It felt like you were climbing to the top of a roller coaster. It was at that point,” Williams said. “There were a number of screams on the plane. Everybody knew that something was out of the ordinary, or at least that this was not normal.” > The experience was harrowing for passengers. > “When the plane started to nosedive, multiple screams are being let out, at that point,” Williams said. “You’re trying your best to maintain your composure – there’s obviously kids on the flight – nobody really knows what’s going on, but at the same time, you’re concerned. You don’t know if this is an issue, but it was certainly out of the ordinary.” > “Someone from the cockpit got on the intercom and said, ‘Alright, folks, you probably felt a couple G’s on that one, but everything’s gonna be OK. We’re gonna be alright,’ ” Williams said. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/united-777-plunge-takeoff-hawaii https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/united-777-plunge-takeoff...

colinmorelli 4y ago

This makes sense, but during takeoff in a plane of 100+ people, none of them happened to be looking out a window and notice that they were falling below the cloud cover and getting a lot closer to the ocean? Or were they still in the clouds? EDIT: Someone in another comment mentioned that ceilings were 800 feet, so passengers likely would not have noticed they were getting closer to the ocean at all.

mh- 4y ago

This CNN article suggests people definitely did feel it. > “It felt like you were climbing to the top of a roller coaster. It was at that point,” Williams said. “There were a number of screams on the plane. Everybody knew that something was out of the ordinary, or at least that this was not normal.” > The experience was harrowing for passengers. > “When the plane started to nosedive, multiple screams are being let out, at that point,” Williams said. “You’re trying your best to maintain your composure – there’s obviously kids on the flight – nobody really knows what’s going on, but at the same time, you’re concerned. You don’t know if this is an issue, but it was certainly out of the ordinary.” > “Someone from the cockpit got on the intercom and said, ‘Alright, folks, you probably felt a couple G’s on that one, but everything’s gonna be OK. We’re gonna be alright,’ ” Williams said. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/united-777-plunge-takeoff-hawaii https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/united-777-plunge-takeoff...