Read More on Flight Safety It's quite safe, they're not going to fall off. A fellow pilot, John Cox, told USA Today that Boeing 787 wings can bend upwards as much as 26 feet, much more than they'd ever bend during even severe turbulence. He said: Aircraft wings can flex much more than most people realise.

Modern commercial aircraft wings are designed to be incredibly flexible, functioning much like an "absorber" to handle the stresses of lift and turbulence. A prime example is the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, whose wings are made of advanced carbon-fiber composites that allow them to flex upward by as much as 26 feet (nearly 8 meters) during extreme stress testing without snapping. In a typical flight, you might see the wingtips of a 787 or an Airbus A350 (which can flex up to 17 feet) curve noticeably upward as they generate the lift required to keep the massive aircraft airborne. This "wing flex" is a deliberate engineering choice; a rigid wing would be prone to cracking or structural failure when hitting a pocket of clear-air turbulence. By bending, the wings dissipate the energy of the impact, leading to a much smoother ride for passengers and reduced strain on the aircraft's fuselage. Interestingly, the wings actually "straighten out" or droop slightly when the plane is on the ground and not generating lift. Seeing the wings bend like "noodles" during a bumpy flight might look alarming, but it is actually a sign of the aircraft's sophisticated safety design working exactly as intended.