Several Affected as Rough Air Strikes Delta Plane Arriving in Sydney, Australia
Multiple passengers and crew have been injured after a Delta Airlines aircraft from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia experienced turbulence on Friday morning.
The flight, numbered 41 "encountered brief turbulence" as it made its approach and landed at the Sydney airport, an airline spokesperson stated. Several cabin crew members sustained injuries.
The New South Wales Ambulance Service stated they evaluated a total of five people, and took a trio to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries that included back pain and migraines. The patients' ages were between their thirties and seventies.
This marks the most recent case of aircraft being hit by severe turbulence, with experts indicating that climate change is a significant contributor.
There were nearly 250 travelers and 15 crew members on the Airbus A350, the Delta spokesperson noted, clarifying that the plane touched down "safely and normally" at Sydney Airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday.
Emergency responders reported they received a call just a mere three minutes before the plane arrived, and emergency vehicles were waiting on the tarmac.
Why in-flight bumpiness is getting more frequent - and often stronger.
Last year, 25 people were injured when another Delta jet, on a route from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, Netherlands, experienced "considerable" turbulence just a couple of hours into the long-haul flight, and diverted for an precautionary landing.
Recently, travelers and staff on a Singapore Airlines jet went through a terrifying short but intense bout of severe turbulence. One passenger passed away and many were hurt, as those without seatbelts rose out of their seats and crashed back down.
Bumpy air is fairly routine during flights, and while instances of significant turbulence are reportedly becoming more frequent, they are remained quite uncommon.
Data suggests that there are around five thousand cases of significant in-flight disturbance every year, out of a sum of more than 35 million flights that now take off around the world.
Strong atmospheric disturbance is described as when the up and down movements of a jet going through rough air masses exert more than 1.5g-force on your body - a strong enough force to throw you from your seat if you did not have on a safety belt.
As climate change modifies weather patterns, experts warn that commercial aviation could become more turbulent: temperature changes and altered air currents in the upper atmosphere are likely to increase the occurrence and strength of severe turbulence.
