What happens if you fly over an earthquake?

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you were on a commercial flight flying above the Earth's surface when a massive earthquake struck? Surely you'd be too high to try anything, right? Well, it depends on a few things.

Earthquakes and air

It may seem unlikely, but depending on the situation, there may be some consequences from the earthquake that cause problems with the trip. But before proceeding, it is useful to explore the relationship between the atmosphere and the Earth.

“When the Earth shakes, it causes small atmospheric waves that can propagate up to the ionosphere,” Attila Kumjathi, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology, said on NASA's website. This is a region that can extend up to 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) above the surface of our planet.

As such, an earthquake could cause some turbulence, but would this be enough to interfere with the plane? The short answer is no, but the long answer, which is also no, is more interesting.

When earthquakes occur, they release seismic waves that come in the form of pressure waves (P waves) and shear waves (S waves). While S waves can only travel through solid media (earth), P waves can travel through other media, such as liquids or gases. As such, they can move into the atmosphere. When they do this, they become sound waves that typically register below 20 Hz, which is the lower limit of human hearing, so they usually cannot be heard (sound that falls in this range is referred to as ultrasound).

However, the further these waves move through the air, the weaker they become. This is a process called attenuation and it's basically the same process that makes things appear quieter the farther away you are from them. It is also the process that weakens sunlight as it travels through the atmosphere or other media, such as the ocean.

For this reason, an airplane flying over an earthquake, even a severe one, will not feel the impact of the vibrations below it. By the time the P waves have traveled through the rocks and then the air, they have been diminished to the point that they will be drowned out by the noise and movement of the aircraft.

However, this does not mean that airplanes are risk-free when an earthquake occurs. The problems here are of a different kind and relate to navigation and safety.

In 2018, a user claiming to be a US Air Force pilot and aerospace engineer named Ron Wagner wrote in response to a question posted on Quora that asked: “Do earthquakes affect an airplane flying overhead?” Wagner's response was so interesting that Forbes later republished it.

According to Wagner's account, he piloted a plane during an earthquake that interfered with air traffic control. In this case, the earthquake caused a power outage to the base on the ground, causing problems with the plane's navigation instruments as well as its ability to communicate. The power outage also caused air traffic control to lose a radar signal, so it could no longer determine the location of Wagner's flight. However, all these problems were short-lived, and the problem was resolved with the start-up of emergency power for the ground base.

Although this sounds like a scary event, it is an example of what can happen. In most cases, air traffic control stations have sufficient emergency backup generators for such situations. They have also prepared comprehensive monitoring plans for system-wide events, which take into account, where appropriate, what to do in the event of a volcanic eruption, nuclear fallout, floods, acts of terrorism and, of course, earthquakes.

So, don't worry too much if you find yourself flying while an earthquake occurs below you. In most cases, you won't even know it's happening until you land.

All “explainer” articles are verified by fact-checkers at the time of publication. Text, images and links can be edited, removed or added at a later time to keep the information up to date.

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