A Number of Hurt as Rough Air Strikes A Delta Airlines Plane Arriving in Sydney, Australia
Several people sustained injuries when a Delta Airlines flight from LA to Sydney experienced rough air on Friday morning.
The flight, numbered 41 "encountered brief turbulence" as it landed at Sydney Airport, an airline spokesperson told. Several cabin crew members were injured.
The New South Wales Ambulance Service reported they treated five patients, and transferred a trio to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries that comprised pain in the back and headaches. The patients' ages ranged from their thirties and seventies.
The event represents the most recent case of planes experiencing severe turbulence, with researchers pointing out that global warming is a major factor.
There were nearly 250 travelers and a crew of 15 on the Airbus A350, the representative said, stating that the plane arrived "safely" at Sydney Airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday morning.
Paramedics indicated they were alerted just only 180 seconds prior to the plane arrived, and ambulances were ready and waiting at the airport.
The reasons turbulence is becoming more common - and often stronger.
In the previous year, twenty-five passengers and crew sustained injuries when a separate Delta aircraft, travelling from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, encountered "severe" rough air just 120 minutes into the long-haul flight, and was forced to make an emergency landing.
Recently, passengers and crew on a Singapore Airlines jet endured a frightening five seconds bout of severe turbulence. One passenger passed away and numerous people sustained injuries, as unbelted passengers lifted out of their seats and fell back down.
Turbulence is fairly routine while flying, and while occurrences of significant turbulence seem to be rising, they are statistically infrequent.
Research indicates that there are approximately five thousand cases of severe-or-greater turbulence every year, out of a total of in excess of 35 million journeys that are conducted worldwide.
Intense turbulence is categorized as when the vertical motions of a plane experiencing unstable air apply more than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - sufficient force to lift you out of your seat if you did not have on a safety belt.
As a changing climate shifts the conditions in the sky, researchers alert that flying could become more turbulent: shifts in temperature and altered air currents in the higher altitudes are expected to increase the occurrence and strength of severe turbulence.