PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — Usually, it’s during take-off and landing when passengers may hold onto their armrests a little tighter.
“It’s just part of the trip,” passenger Dan Western said. “We came out of Dallas; they had some bad weather coming out of there.”
However, turbulence can happen at any time, even thousands of feet up in the air.
“Well it happens, what can you do?” passenger Sal Carnavle said.
A recent Lufthansa flight dropped hundreds of feet Wednesday hitting, what pilots call, clear air turbulence.
“It is terrifying to lose 4-5,000 feet in severe turbulence,” aviation expert David Bjellos said. “It’s terrifying, I don’t care who you are, if you’re sitting in the front, you’re sitting in the back, it’s a surprise and it’s terrifying.”
Bjellos said newer aircrafts may have advanced technology that picks up certain turbulence on the radar several thousand feet above and below the airplane.
WATCH BELOW: What causes clear air turbulence?
“When there’s moisture involved, when we have convective activity, that means thunderstorm-type activity, we know it’s going to be rough and we turn the seatbelt signs on,” he said. “We tell people to sit down; tell the flight attendants to sit down. Usually it lasts for five minutes, 10 minutes, and then we’re through it.”
WPTV reporter Michelle Quesada asked Bjellos is there a possibility that pilots may come across unexpected turbulence, even with a radar system.
“We can’t predict clear air turbulence, we don’t know,” Bjellos said. “If it’s a jet stream issue, we can’t predict it. We can only predict if there’s moisture in the air.
NASA continues to research turbulence using unmanned gliders in a controlled descent to advance turbulence detection.
The Federal Aviation Administration has guidelines for airlines to avoid these conditions but also said passengers should keep their seatbelts buckled at all times.
“We willingly put ourselves in a tube that goes 500 miles an hour," Bjellos said. "So, the best thing you can do is wear your seatbelt.”
WPTV looked into what actions the FAA is taking to better respond to turbulence.
The FAA said it is doing the following: improving data collection and sharing, modernizing the pilot report system where pilots communicate weather conditions, including turbulence, improving automation, which provides ways for pilots and air traffic controllers to digitally enter and share reports, among other efforts.
