What impact will snow have on flights?

Snow will cause flight delays and, in severe cases, flight cancellations. In heavy snow weather, the visibility at the airport is seriously reduced, affecting the sight of pilots. When the visibility is only a few dozen meters, the aircraft controlled by the pilots cannot land or take off at all, or even taxi. If not handled properly, flight accidents may easily occur. At this time, the airport will have to be forced to close, and normal flights will become abnormal or cancelled.

Due to the arrival of strong cold air, the surface temperature dropped sharply. All rainfall and snow will quickly form ice on the runway when encountering low temperatures. The friction between the aircraft tires and the ice layer is reduced, and the aircraft landing or taking off will slide irregularly on the runway, making it difficult to maintain direction, and it is easy to overrun the runway and cause danger.

Heavy snow causes ice or ice to accumulate on the aircraft fuselage, and the accumulation of ice and frost increases the weight of the aircraft. At the same time, ice accumulation may cause changes in the streamline of the wing, imbalance in the weight of the propeller blades, or the sealing of the intake pipe in the carburetor, difficulty in retracting and retracting the landing gear, freezing of the throttle, cutting off the source of fuel, and freezing of the cockpit windows and doors to seal the driver. line of sight, etc., which may cause serious aircraft crashes.

In heavy snowy weather, due to low visibility, in order to ensure safety, the air traffic control department will increase the safe distance between aircraft, which will inevitably lengthen the waiting time for flights and cause flight delays. At the same time, once the aircraft freezes, it must be de-iced in time. The de-icing operation takes a certain amount of time, which will inevitably affect flight punctuality.

Extended information:

Weather conditions that affect aircraft takeoff:

1. Thunderstorm weather

Thunderstorm is the main weather that affects flight in summer one. Lightning and strong thunderstorm electric fields can seriously interfere with medium and short-wave radio communications, and even temporarily interrupt communications. When there are thunderstorms over the airport, intense precipitation, poor visibility, sharp wind direction changes and gusts will have a great impact on flight activities and ground equipment.

2. Low cloud weather

Low cloud is one of the dangerous weather that endangers flight safety, and it will affect the landing of the aircraft. When landing at an airport covered by low clouds, if the aircraft is very low above the ground after emerging from the clouds and is not aligned with the runway, it is often too late to make corrections, which can easily lead to a go-around. Sometimes, due to improper command or operation, the aircraft may collide with ground obstacles and stall.

3. Snowy days

Icing is very dangerous for flying. Due to the accumulation of frost, which increases the weight of the aircraft, and more importantly, due to the change in the streamline shape of the wing, the imbalance of the weight of the propeller blades, or the sealing of the intake pipe in the carburetor, it is difficult to retract and retract the landing gear, and the cockpit windows are blocked by ice. It is conceivable that the risk of aircraft crash caused by the pilot's line of sight and other reasons.

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