A Number of Injured as Turbulence Impacts A Delta Airlines Flight Landing at Sydney
A number of individuals have been injured after a Delta Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Sydney experienced turbulence Friday morning.
Delta Flight 41 "went through a short bout of rough air" as it touched down at the Sydney airport, a company official stated. Several cabin crew members required medical attention.
The New South Wales Ambulance Service said they assessed a total of five people, and took three of them to hospital with relatively minor issues that such as pain in the back and migraines. Those affected were between their 30s to 70s.
The event represents the latest incident of aircraft being hit by severe turbulence, with experts indicating that shifting climate patterns is a major factor.
On board were nearly 250 travelers and 15 crew members on the Airbus A350, the Delta spokesperson said, clarifying that the plane arrived "safely and normally" at Sydney Airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on Friday.
Paramedics said they received a call just three minutes before the plane landed, and ambulances were ready and waiting at the airport.
Why plane turbulence is becoming more common - and often stronger.
Last year, two dozen individuals sustained injuries when a separate Delta aircraft, travelling from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, Netherlands, hit "severe" rough air just a couple of hours into the long-haul flight, and was forced to make an emergency landing.
Earlier this year, travelers and staff on a Singapore Airlines jet endured a harrowing short but intense bout of severe turbulence. A traveler passed away and dozens were injured, as unbelted passengers rose out of their seats and were slammed back.
Bumpy air is fairly routine on aircraft journeys, and while occurrences of significant turbulence appear to be increasing, they are still very rare.
Estimates show that there are approximately thousands of instances of severe-or-greater turbulence annually, out of a total of over 35 million flights that are conducted globally.
Strong atmospheric disturbance is described as when the sudden jolts of a aircraft experiencing unstable air exert more than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - enough to lift you out of your seat if you were not fastened by a restraint.
As climate change modifies weather patterns, experts warn that commercial aviation could become bumpier: warming trends and altered air currents in the higher altitudes are projected to heighten the frequency and intensity of severe turbulence.
