Newton's Laws of Motion on an airplane

[torresmido]

Homework Statement

Your airplane is caught in a brief, violent downdraft. To your amazement, the pretzels on your seatback tray rise vertivally, and you estimate their upward acceleration relative to the plane at 2 m/s^2. What's the donward acceleration of the plane?

ANy suggestions are highly aprreciated!

Homework Equations

The Attempt at a Solution

what I know is that if the plane is in such a situation it's subject to the gravitational force only, but why we're given this pretzels acceleration?

 

[BitterSuites]

Stated another way, the plane is heading downward so quickly that it has a greater acceleration than gravity by 2 m/s^2. If that is true, what is the downward acceleration of the plane?

It should give you gravity as either 9.8 or 9.81 m/s^2.

 

[torresmido]

so the plane's acceleration is 11.8 m/s^2 downward. We should sum the gravitation acceleration and the pretzels.

 

[BitterSuites]

Exactly.