Multiple Injured as Turbulence Hits A Delta Airlines Plane into Sydney, Australia
A number of individuals sustained injuries when a Delta Airlines aircraft from LA to Sydney, Australia experienced rough air this past Friday.
Delta Flight 41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it made its approach and landed at the Sydney airport, a representative for the carrier informed. Four flight attendants sustained injuries.
Emergency medical services said they assessed five patients, and transported three of them to a medical facility with relatively minor issues that comprised back pain and migraines. The injured ranged from their 30s up to the 70s.
It is the most recent case of aircraft being hit by severe turbulence, with experts saying that climate change is a key driver.
There were 245 passengers and a crew of 15 on the Airbus A350, the representative added, adding that the plane arrived "without further incident" at Sydney Airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on the day in question.
Emergency responders indicated they were alerted just three minutes before the plane touched down, and ambulances were standing by on the runway.
The reasons turbulence is growing more frequent - and potentially more dangerous.
In the previous year, two dozen individuals sustained injuries when another Delta jet, on a route from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, experienced "severe" turbulence just a couple of hours into the long-haul flight, and had to make an emergency landing.
Earlier this year, travelers and staff on a Singapore Airlines jet endured a harrowing five seconds bout of severe turbulence. A traveler died and numerous people sustained injuries, as unbelted passengers lifted out of their seats and fell back down.
In-flight turbulence is not uncommon on aircraft journeys, and while cases of strong or severe turbulence seem to be rising, they are still very rare.
Data suggests that there are approximately thousands of instances of significant in-flight disturbance each year, out of a total of over 35 million flights that now take off globally.
Intense turbulence is described as when the sudden jolts of a plane passing through rough air masses exert greater than 1.5g-force on your body - sufficient force to throw you from your seat if you were not fastened by a seatbelt.
As global warming modifies weather patterns, experts warn that flying could become more turbulent: warming trends and changing jet streams in the jet stream level are expected to boost the frequency and intensity of dangerous in-flight bumps.
