A Number of Hurt as In-Flight Disturbance Strikes Delta Aircraft Landing at Sydney
A number of individuals have been injured when a Delta flight traveling from Los Angeles to Sydney was hit by significant turbulence this past Friday.
Delta Flight 41 "went through a short bout of rough air" as it touched down at Sydney Airport, a representative for the carrier told. A number of the onboard staff sustained injuries.
Emergency medical services said they treated five patients, and transferred three of them to the hospital with relatively minor issues that included pain in the back and headaches. The patients' ages were between their 30s up to the 70s.
This marks the latest incident of commercial jets being hit by atmospheric disturbance, with researchers saying that shifting climate patterns is a major factor.
There were 245 people and fifteen staff members on the aircraft, the official said, clarifying that the plane arrived "safely" at Sydney Airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on Friday morning.
The NSW Ambulance Service said they got a call just three minutes ahead of the plane landed, and response teams were ready and waiting at the airport.
The reasons turbulence is growing more frequent - and more severe.
In the previous year, twenty-five passengers and crew sustained injuries when a separate Delta aircraft, on a route from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, experienced "considerable" turbulence just a couple of hours into the long-haul flight, and diverted for an emergency landing.
Earlier this year, passengers and crew on a Singapore Airlines flight experienced a harrowing five seconds period of extreme instability. One passenger passed away and many were hurt, as individuals not fastened in were thrown from their seats and were slammed back.
Bumpy air is a common occurrence on aircraft journeys, and while occurrences of significant turbulence are reportedly becoming more frequent, they are remained quite uncommon.
Estimates show that there are an estimated thousands of instances of severe-or-greater turbulence each year, out of a total of more than 35 million aircraft departures that currently occur around the world.
Strong atmospheric disturbance is described as when the sudden jolts of a aircraft passing through rough air masses apply in excess of a significant G-force on your body - sufficient force to propel you from your seat if you were not fastened by a restraint.
As a changing climate shifts the conditions in the sky, researchers alert that flying could become bumpier: temperature changes and shifting wind patterns in the higher altitudes are projected to heighten the occurrence and strength of dangerous in-flight bumps.
