I think back in 2010 or 11' I was flying somewhere just east of the rockies at 39000'. Everything was pretty routine about an hour into the flight when all of a sudden we started to get slight mountain wave. One second later, whaaaaap! It was as if a hammer had smacked the airplane. Everything went flying in the cockpit. This was when we still carried flight cases. I remember my left shoulder taking a hit from it. The mx can flew up and scratched my right hand. I looked at airspeed and were fluctuating between mach .62 to .90. Up and down drafts of 1500'/min. This all happened in less than 30 seconds when I finally said enough and asked the copilot to ask for lower. He couldnt even get his fingertips on the PTT because the plane was bouncing around so violently. I started to hear pax screaming in the back when the copilot finally got a hold of the mic and asked for lower. The controller told us to contact some other frequency but at this point I began to question whether we were injuring flight attendants and pax in the back. I didn't know if it would get worse but if it did, we would pretty much be in an uncontrolled state, we were barely hanging on as it was.
After we attempted to contact the new controller over and over with no answer, pax screaming, and stuff flying, I said enough was enough. I pictured landing the plane and some pax being wheeled off in a stretcher and the FAA/company coming after me for not doing anything about it. I disconnected the autopilot and descended. As soon as we descended, we got ahold of center and told them what was going on. The controller first was upset that we descended without a clearance, but the alternative was pax injured and who knows what else. I immediately told the guy we were declaring an emergency and informed him of what was going on and he immediately cleared us down to the low 30's. As we got to the mid 30's the turbulence subsided. Everybody was shaken up pretty bad. I remember leveling off and telling the controller we had it under control and the next thing I know I hear everyone on the radio asking to stay the hell away from our area. "United 123, we want to stay 100 miles away from that aircraft." "Delta 123, same for us". "Frontier 123, yeah 100 miles away for us". I think I heard 5-6 airplanes in the sector say that when the controller finally said that they were working on rerouting everyone.
About a month later I get a call from the student council rep asking me what happened. After I told him, he informed me that the FAA was pissed and wanted bacon on a platter. I was so pissed when I heard that. I felt as though the rep was not going to bat for me. How could he if he hadn't heard my side of the event and already discussed it with the FAA. I told him to give me the FAA's number and that I would hire a lawyer and contact the media and tell them how I took action to keep everyone safe, and now the company and the FAA rep were looking to make a name for themselves. I remember telling him how I did the LAS-PSP shuttle 8 times a day in the brasilia in the summer back in the day. Now that was turbulence. This was worse. I never heard back from anyone after that phone call.
The things I learned that day:
Do what you have to to keep everyone safe, but you better be able to CYA in case you're called out like I was.
Without a union, you are on your own.
I can talk about it now all these years later and not care, because well, I just DGAF. Be safe out there guys.
:stir:
