It is not flying over the tornado that is the problem, it is flying over the thunderstorm that generated it. Most thunderstorms that generate tornados are too high for commercial aircraft to fly over. However they are easy to see on radar and therefore easy to go around.
Yes. Plenty of airplanes have been hit by tornadoes while on the ground. On October 6, 1981 a commercial flight flew into a tornado 8 minutes after taking off from Rotterdam Airport in the Netherlands. The plane lost its right wing and crashed, killing all 17 people on board.
Technically, yes. But there is always a thunderstorm above a tornado, and planes avoid flying within thunderstorms because of the extreme turbulence in them, to say nothing of the possibility of flying debris from the tornado. The tops of thunderstorms are extremely high, but if a plane can reach that altitude, it might fly over the thunderstorm and any tornadoes that might be beneath it.
If you intend to come out unscathed, probably not. Tornadoes produce extremly strong turbulence that can, in some cases, can rip a plane apart.
Yes. Planes have been picked up and thrown by tornadoes.
There have been proposals for bombing tornadoes, the problem is any bomb strong enough would probably cause more damage than the tornado.
Yes, it is possible for places to fly over hurricanes and some low-topped supercells (the type of storm that produces tornadoes). However, pilots generally try to avoid such storms.
Find a deep ditch, lay in it.
If no buildings are around the best place to take cover is in a ditch or gully.
It depends on how intense the tornado is. If it is an EF-0 tornado, it probably wouldn't even pick you up off the ground. If it were an EF-3 tornado, you will get tossed around up and down, and side to side. Usually, tornadoes don't throw people very high, just a few meters off the ground. If it were an EF-5 tornado, your chances of survival are very, very slim. But people have lived through them. In an EF-5 tornado, the winds can reach and surpass 250 mph. These ferocious winds will toss you like a paper airplane. The debris in all tornadoes is a threat, but debris in an EF-5 tornado are going much faster than you could think possible. Cars can be thrown over half a mile. You would be lucky to survive a tornado of this intensity. You do not twirl up and out of a tornado, the winds cannot take you up that far. Yes, they can throw you a distance from where you originally began. The most likely case is being tossed around in all kinds of directions, with debris flying by you.
It depends on the intensity of the tornado and the size of the plane. As an example, depending on the design, a Boeing-737 weighs about 30 to 50 tons empty and about 55 to 95 tons fully loaded. Based on records of large objects being moved, a strong enough tornado, almost certainly an EF5, could lift a plane at the lower end of this range. Smaller airliners could probably be lifted in that case as well. A violent tornado, however, would place an enormous amount of shearing stress on a plane, something planes are generally not designed to withstand. So, a commercial airplane struck by such a strong tornado would likely be torn apart rather than lifted as a whole.
Predicting a tornado allows us to warn people in the path, allowing them to get to a safe place before it hits. In the days before we had tornado warnings many people were killed or injured because tornadoes caught them unprepared.
Yes, normally this happens to planes on the ground when a tornado strikes an airport.
Yes, it can.
Only if everyone in it wants to die horribly.
Weather Caught on Camera - 2011 Rare Canada Tornado was released on: USA: 23 March 2011
The main impact of a tornado on ecosystems is the destruction of trees and other vegetation. Animals caught in a tornado may be killed or injured as well.
Yes. Tornadoes have been known to lift up airplanes.
A person looked and saw it and went "Oh Crap!" or a person got caught up in it and survived and called it a tornado.
A tornado moves with its parent thunderstorm. As the tornado moves air flows into it and accelerates to great speeds. Objects caught in the path may be damaged or destroyed.
Yes as long as you don't get caught with it and get arrested.
Find a deep ditch, lay in it.
Generally you should shelter in place during a tornado as you are more likely to survive if caught in your house than if caught in a car. Evacuating from a tornado is not as simple as it sounds, as the paths of tornadoes can be unpredictable and it is possible to get stuck in traffic since peak tornado activity often coincides with the evening rush hour. That said, if you are in a mobile home when a tornado is coming you should leave it for sturdier shelter.
No, it is usually quite turbulent. Additionally, helicopter pilots flying relatively close to tornadoes have reported fairly strong winds blowing toward the tornado.