How far a plane’s wings can bend during a flight before you have to worry

A PILOT has revealed how far a plane’s wings can bend during a flight and why it’s not something passengers should ever be worried about.

During turbulence, or even take off and landing, the wings of a plane can be seen bending up and down, causing some people to feel uneasy.

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It’s understandable, with the pressure put on the plane’s wings a scary thing to think about, given how flimsy they can sometimes look.

However, it’s a perfectly normal thing to occur during a flight – and the chances of the wings bending too far is nothing to worry about.

Mark, an Airbus captain for a commercial airline, explained in a video on YouTube how aircraft designers deliberately snap the wings, in order to work out how flexible they need to make them.

He said: “The wings moving is a completely normal thing, they’re designed to do that.

“The wings are designed to have a degree of movement in them, especially for when you’re in turbulence, you don’t want them rigid. It would stress the aircraft.

“It’s quite safe, they’re not going to fall off.”

A fellow pilot, John Cox, told USA Today that Boeing 787 wings can bend upwards as much as 26 feet, much more than they’d ever bend during even severe turbulence.

He said: “Aircraft wings can flex much more than most people realise. During testing, the Boeing 787 wings flexed 26 feet upward before failing.

“Aircraft designers calculate the maximum stress they anticipate a wing will experience in flight, then make it able to withstand 50% more as a safety margin.

“Compared to earlier jets, today’s aircraft have longer, thinner wings that are more flexible, more fuel-efficient and provide a softer ride.”

The only thing really likely to contribute to a snapped wing during a flight is human error, which is also extremely unlikely, due to the amount of testing each plane will be put through before it takes off.

Rainer Groh who runs the Aerospace Engineering Blog said that “bad engineering” was the only possible way a plane wing would ever snap.

Another big fear people have during flights is that one of the emergency exits will swing open, sucking everybody out of the aircraft.

However, this too is extremely unlikely, if not impossible.

Sun Online Travel’s resident flight attendant explained why they’re not worried about it, even when unruly passengers threaten to open the doors mid-flight.

They said: “I’ve heard stories of passengers threatening to open doors mid flight, usually drunk ones, which is a physical impossibility.

“At around 60 to 80 knots, the plane doors will be sealed shut by the outside pressure, so until we land and the plane comes to below that speed again, those doors are staying shut, no matter what force comes from inside.

“However, sometimes the pressure does funny things to the doors that can scare people inside, even the flight attendants.

“On certain planes, the door handles have been known to start sliding and moving as if the doors were opening themselves.

“Even if that happens, the pressure will be strong enough to keep the door in place, so it’s nothing to worry about.”

Meanwhile, this flight attendant revealed another big myth about flying that passengers shouldn’t believe.

And these three facts will mean you’ll never be scared of flying again.

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