When the jet age arrived in 1959, little was known about wind shear. Aviation was focused on thunderstorm avoidance. In Joseph George’s compilation of Eastern Air Line’s forecasting techniques from that era, we find thunderstorms described in terms of turbulence, icing, and hail hazards. As jet aircraft were equipped with radar, it was assumed that the captain had all the tools needed to avoid weather. No attention was paid to wind shear, but awareness began ramping up.
Wind Shear “Discovered”
Crashes related to thunderstorms were beginning to appear in newspapers. Prominent examples were the 1953 BOAC Comet breakup near Calcutta, the Braniff BAC-111 crash in 1966, the loss of a Braniff Electra in Texas in 1968, and the 1963 Northwest Orient Boeing 720 crash in Florida. All were ascribed to powerful air currents in the storm and encounters with extreme turbulence.
