Several Injured as Rough Air Strikes Delta Aircraft Landing at Sydney, Australia
A number of individuals have been injured following a Delta Airlines flight from LA to Sydney experienced significant turbulence on Friday morning.
Flight DL41 "encountered brief turbulence" as it made its approach and landed at Sydney Airport, a representative for the carrier told. Several cabin crew members sustained injuries.
Emergency medical services said they assessed five individuals, and took three of them to hospital with relatively minor issues that comprised spinal discomfort and head pain. The injured ranged from their 30s up to the 70s.
This marks the newest example of aircraft being hit by turbulence, with experts indicating that shifting climate patterns is a significant contributor.
The aircraft was carrying 245 passengers and a crew of 15 on the wide-body jet, the representative said, adding that the plane landed "safely" at Sydney Airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on Friday morning.
Emergency responders said they were alerted just only 180 seconds prior to the plane touched down, and response teams were ready and waiting at the airport.
Why plane turbulence is growing more frequent - and potentially more dangerous.
In the previous year, 25 people were injured when another Delta jet, flying from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, Netherlands, hit "considerable" atmospheric disturbance just 120 minutes into the long-haul flight, and had to make an emergency landing.
Recently, passengers and crew on a certain international flight went through a harrowing five seconds of severe turbulence. One passenger passed away and numerous people sustained injuries, as unbelted passengers rose out of their seats and were slammed back.
Bumpy air is fairly routine on aircraft journeys, and while instances of strong or severe turbulence appear to be increasing, they are statistically infrequent.
Data suggests that there are approximately 5,000 incidents of severe or worse turbulence annually, out of a total of more than 35 million aircraft departures that currently occur globally.
Strong atmospheric disturbance is described as when the sudden jolts of a jet experiencing disturbed air generate greater than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - a strong enough force to throw you from your seat if you were not fastened by a seatbelt.
As a changing climate alters weather patterns, specialists caution that air travel could become bumpier: temperature changes and changing jet streams in the upper atmosphere are expected to heighten the regularity and severity of significant turbulence.
