Several Affected as Rough Air Hits A Delta Airlines Plane Landing at Sydney, Australia
Multiple passengers and crew sustained injuries when a Delta aircraft traveling from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia encountered significant turbulence on Friday morning.
Flight DL41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it landed at Sydney Airport, an airline spokesperson informed. Several cabin crew members were injured.
Emergency medical services stated they assessed a total of five people, and transported three to a medical facility with non-life-threatening injuries that such as back pain and head pain. The patients' ages were between their thirties and seventies.
The event represents the newest example of commercial jets being hit by atmospheric disturbance, with aviation specialists indicating that global warming is a key driver.
On board were 245 people and 15 crew members on the Airbus A350, the Delta spokesperson added, stating that the plane touched down "without further incident" at the airport at 06:48 local time on the day in question.
The NSW Ambulance Service said they were alerted just a mere three minutes before the plane touched down, and emergency vehicles were standing by on the runway.
Why in-flight bumpiness is growing more common - and more severe.
Last year, two dozen individuals were injured when a Delta Airlines flight, flying from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, Netherlands, hit "severe" turbulence just two hours into the long-haul flight, and diverted for an precautionary landing.
Earlier this year, travelers and staff on a Singapore Airlines flight endured a frightening short but intense of severe turbulence. An individual passed away and dozens were injured, as individuals not fastened in were thrown from their seats and fell back down.
Turbulence is a common occurrence while flying, and while instances of strong or severe turbulence are reportedly becoming more frequent, they are still very rare.
Estimates show that there are approximately thousands of instances of severe or worse turbulence annually, out of a total of more than 35 million flights that now take off worldwide.
Severe turbulence is defined as when the sudden jolts of a plane experiencing unstable air exert greater than 1.5g-force on your body - enough to propel you from your seat if you did not have on a seatbelt.
As global warming shifts weather patterns, researchers alert that commercial aviation could become less smooth: warming trends and changing jet streams in the jet stream level are projected to heighten the frequency and intensity of severe turbulence.
