Several Hurt as In-Flight Disturbance Hits A Delta Airlines Plane Landing at Sydney
Several people were hurt when a Delta aircraft traveling from Los Angeles to Sydney was hit by turbulence this past Friday.
Flight DL41 "encountered brief turbulence" as it touched down at Sydney Airport, a representative for the carrier told. Four flight attendants were injured.
Emergency medical services reported they treated five individuals, and transferred three of them to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries that included back pain and migraines. The injured ranged from their 30s to 70s.
This marks the most recent case of aircraft encountering turbulence, with researchers pointing out that shifting climate patterns is a major factor.
On board were 245 people and fifteen staff members on the Airbus A350, the representative said, adding that the plane touched down "without further incident" at the airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on the day in question.
Emergency responders said they got a call just three minutes ahead of the plane landed, and emergency vehicles were standing by on the runway.
Why plane turbulence is growing more frequent - and potentially more dangerous.
In the previous year, 25 people were injured when a separate Delta aircraft, on a route from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, experienced "severe" turbulence just two hours into the transoceanic journey, and was forced to make an unscheduled landing.
Recently, those on board on a Singapore Airlines flight experienced a harrowing five seconds bout of severe turbulence. A traveler passed away and many were hurt, as individuals not fastened in rose out of their seats and crashed back down.
Turbulence is not uncommon while flying, and while cases of significant turbulence appear to be increasing, they are still very rare.
Data suggests that there are an estimated 5,000 incidents of severe-or-greater turbulence each year, out of a overall number of more than 35 million aircraft departures that are conducted globally.
Intense turbulence is categorized as when the vertical motions of a jet going through rough air masses generate more than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - a strong enough force to lift you out of your seat if you did not have on a restraint.
As a changing climate shifts weather patterns, experts warn that air travel could become bumpier: warming trends and altered air currents in the jet stream level are likely to boost the frequency and intensity of dangerous in-flight bumps.
