Multiple Affected as Turbulence Strikes A Delta Airlines Plane Arriving in Sydney, Australia
Multiple passengers and crew have been injured when a Delta Airlines jet traveling from Los Angeles to Sydney encountered turbulence on Friday morning.
Delta Flight 41 "encountered brief turbulence" as it touched down at Sydney Airport, a company official informed. Several cabin crew members sustained injuries.
Emergency medical services stated they assessed a total of five people, and transferred three to a medical facility with relatively minor issues that such as back pain and headaches. The patients' ages spanned from their thirties and seventies.
It is the most recent case of commercial jets experiencing atmospheric disturbance, with researchers saying that global warming is a significant contributor.
The aircraft was carrying 245 people and fifteen staff members on the Airbus A350, the Delta spokesperson said, stating that the plane arrived "safely" at Sydney Airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday morning.
The NSW Ambulance Service said they got a call just a mere three minutes ahead of the plane arrived, and ambulances were waiting on the tarmac.
The reasons turbulence is getting increasingly prevalent - and often stronger.
Last year, twenty-five passengers and crew were hurt when another Delta jet, travelling from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, encountered "severe" rough air just a couple of hours into the lengthy trip, and had to make an unscheduled landing.
Earlier this year, passengers and crew on a certain international flight experienced a harrowing short but intense of severe turbulence. One passenger died and numerous people sustained injuries, as unbelted passengers were thrown from their seats and crashed back down.
Bumpy air is not uncommon while flying, and while cases of significant turbulence seem to be rising, they are remained quite uncommon.
Research indicates that there are an estimated five thousand cases of significant in-flight disturbance each year, out of a overall number of over 35 million journeys that now take off worldwide.
Intense turbulence is defined as when the vertical motions of a jet passing through unstable air exert greater than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - enough to throw you from your seat if you were not fastened by a seatbelt.
As climate change shifts the conditions in the sky, experts warn that air travel could become less smooth: warming trends and shifting wind patterns in the upper atmosphere are expected to increase the regularity and severity of dangerous in-flight bumps.