Mystery of Tibet’s no-fly zone: What’s behind it
Why planes avoid flying over Tibet (photo: Getty Images)
If you look at the flight paths of airplanes traveling around the world, you will notice several oddities. For example, they do not fly direct routes to their destination or avoid certain areas. This is exactly the situation with Tibet, and there are important reasons for this.
RBC-Ukraine takes a look at why planes try not to fly over Tibet regarding IFL science.
Tibet is a historical and geographical region in Central Asia, and its largest part covers the Tibetan Plateau. The average altitude is 4000 meters above sea level and it is there that the highest point on the globe, Mount Everest, is located, with a height of 8848.43 meters.
There are many mountains and elevated plateaus in the Tibetan countryside. Although it is not a problem for airplanes to climb above the mountain, there are still some nuances that make pilots try not to fly over the territory of Tibet.
One of the problems with flying over Tibet is that the mountain ranges have a lot of turbulence.
“In its most simple sense, turbulence is a disturbance in the air, and is not unlike the movement of waves and sea currents. If there are no obstacles in the way of an incoming wave it will 'flow' nicely, but if it hits a sea wall, say, it will break up and you can see the disruption to the wave,” explains Darren Ansell, head of space and aerospace engineering at the University of Central Lancashire.
He adds that turbulence is very dangerous for an airplane in mountainous terrain.
“As air flows over man-made structures and natural terrain such as mountains, the air flow is disrupted and causes the air above and around it to become turbulent. So if you take off or land from an airport close to a mountain range or very hilly terrain you are more likely to experience this kind of turbulence during and shortly after take-off,” the expert says.
During turbulence, an airplane follows the direction of the turbulent air - up, down, or side to side. This often causes a rapid drop in altitude. Turbulence can be mild, moderate, severe, and extreme. And with extreme turbulence, there is a high risk of a plane crash.
The airspace over Tibet is not closed and flying there is not prohibited, although the mountain ranges can make flying very difficult. But there is another problem: safety.
Airplanes fly much higher than the average altitude of 5000 meters. But if the cockpit pressure drops (it happens, although it is extremely rare), pilots may need to descend to 3000 meters, where the air is breathable.
In most areas, this is not a big problem, but over Tibet, such a descent can very easily provoke a collision with a mountain range.
This is the reason why, along with the lack of areas where an emergency landing could be made, airplanes avoid flying over Tibet.
By the way, in the early 2000s, a new section of the Golmud-Lhasa railroad was built in Tibet, and part of the route runs at an altitude of more than 4000 meters above sea level. There is even a station located at an altitude of 5000 meters.
In the passenger cars on this railway, oxygen is supplied - through the air conditioning system and individually - to each passenger seat. This is necessary to overcome the journey in the highlands.
