Planes don’t fly over Tibet, but why?

Air travel is one of the quickest ways to connect people around the world.

In air travel, which is fast but at the same time quite costly, the route between two flight points is designed in the shortest possible way, taking into account technical conditions. Furthermore, continuous efforts are being made to shorten the flight time on these routes.

However, there are some parts of the world where almost no planes fly through, at the expense of extending the route.

Here is one such geography, China’s Tibet region.

Why are the planes not flying over Tibet?

Well, what is the reason for this?

The answer to this question is actually found in the “Roof of the World” analogy for Tibet.

Tibet is a geography that has an average altitude of 5,000 meters above sea level and includes the mount Everest, the highest place in the world.

As we know, the cabins of modern passenger aircraft are pressurized.

In case of a possible malfunction in the cabin pressurization system, oxygen masks are activated first in order to allow the passengers to breathe comfortably.

However, the capacity of the oxygen system is sufficient only for a period of 15-20 minutes.

Therefore, when a failure occurs in the cabin pressurization system, the aircraft must descend to an altitude of 10,000 feet (3,000 meters).

As mentioned above, the altitude in most parts of Tibet region is much higher than this level (3,000 meters).

Therefore, in this area, there is no environment in which aircraft can descend safely in case of an emergency. For this reason, passenger planes do not fly over Tibetan, as security cannot be compromised at the expense of extending routes.

Tibet region has another restrictive aspect, which particularly concerns twin-engine aircraft.

In the event of an engine failure, aircraft may have difficulty keeping the same altitude with the power of a single engine.

In such emergency situations, some lowering may be required. Regions consisting of high mountain ranges also pose a risk for this reason.

After all, planes do not fly in this part of the world. And as can be seen on our map, they literally travel around Tibet and fly towards their destination.

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