A Number of Hurt as Rough Air Impacts A Delta Airlines Flight Arriving in Sydney, Australia
Multiple passengers and crew have been injured after a Delta Airlines aircraft traveling from Los Angeles to Sydney experienced turbulence this past Friday.
The flight, numbered 41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it touched down at Sydney Airport, an airline spokesperson told. Several cabin crew members required medical attention.
Local paramedics stated they treated a total of five people, and took a trio to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries that comprised back pain and head pain. The patients' ages were between their 30s up to the 70s.
It is the newest example of commercial jets encountering severe turbulence, with researchers saying that global warming is a key driver.
On board were 245 passengers and fifteen staff members on the Airbus A350, the Delta spokesperson noted, adding that the plane landed "safely and normally" at Sydney Airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday.
Emergency responders reported they received a call just only 180 seconds before the plane landed, and ambulances were ready and waiting at the airport.
Why in-flight bumpiness is getting more frequent - and often stronger.
Last year, 25 people were hurt when another Delta jet, flying from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, experienced "considerable" rough air just two hours into the lengthy trip, and was forced to make an unscheduled landing.
Recently, travelers and staff on a Singapore Airlines jet experienced a harrowing five seconds bout of severe turbulence. An individual died and many were hurt, as unbelted passengers rose out of their seats and were slammed back.
In-flight turbulence is not uncommon while flying, and while occurrences of rough conditions seem to be rising, they are still very rare.
Estimates show that there are approximately thousands of instances of severe or worse turbulence annually, out of a sum of in excess of 35 million aircraft departures that currently occur around the world.
Severe turbulence is categorized as when the up and down movements of a plane experiencing rough air masses exert greater than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - a strong enough force to propel you from your seat if you were not fastened by a seatbelt.
As a changing climate modifies atmospheric conditions, researchers alert that air travel could become less smooth: shifts in temperature and altered air currents in the jet stream level are likely to heighten the regularity and severity of significant turbulence.
