Multiple Affected as Rough Air Hits A Delta Airlines Plane Landing at Sydney, Australia
Multiple passengers and crew have been injured after a Delta jet from Los Angeles to Sydney experienced turbulence Friday morning.
The flight, numbered 41 "went through a short bout of rough air" as it landed at Sydney Airport, a company official stated. A number of the onboard staff were injured.
The New South Wales Ambulance Service said they evaluated a total of five people, and transferred three of them to hospital with relatively minor issues that included back pain and head pain. The patients' ages were between their thirties and seventies.
It is the newest example of commercial jets being hit by turbulence, with researchers saying that global warming is a key driver.
On board were 245 people and a crew of 15 on the aircraft, the representative noted, adding that the plane touched down "without further incident" at Sydney Airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday.
The NSW Ambulance Service reported they got a call just three minutes ahead of the plane landed, and emergency vehicles were ready and waiting at the airport.
Why in-flight bumpiness is becoming more frequent - and more severe.
In the previous year, 25 people were injured when a separate Delta aircraft, flying from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, Netherlands, hit "significant" turbulence just 120 minutes into the long-haul flight, and was forced to make an precautionary landing.
Earlier this year, passengers and crew on a certain international flight went through a frightening five seconds period of extreme instability. A traveler lost their life and many were hurt, as those without seatbelts were thrown from their seats and were slammed back.
Turbulence is fairly routine on aircraft journeys, and while occurrences of strong or severe turbulence appear to be increasing, they are still very rare.
Research indicates that there are approximately 5,000 incidents of severe or worse turbulence annually, out of a total of over 35 million journeys that currently occur around the world.
Intense turbulence is described as when the up and down movements of a plane passing through disturbed air exert more than 1.5g-force on your body - a strong enough force to propel you from your seat if you were not fastened by a safety belt.
As a changing climate alters atmospheric conditions, researchers alert that flying could become bumpier: shifts in temperature and shifting wind patterns in the jet stream level are expected to boost the regularity and severity of severe turbulence.