A Number of Hurt as Rough Air Impacts A Delta Airlines Plane Landing at Sydney, Australia
Several people were hurt when a Delta Airlines aircraft traveling from LA to Sydney, Australia encountered significant turbulence this past Friday.
Delta Flight 41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it touched down at the Sydney airport, a company official told. A number of the onboard staff sustained injuries.
The New South Wales Ambulance Service said they treated five individuals, and transferred three of them to hospital with relatively minor issues that included spinal discomfort and headaches. The injured spanned from their 30s to 70s.
This marks the latest incident of planes experiencing atmospheric disturbance, with aviation specialists saying that climate change is a major factor.
The aircraft was carrying 245 passengers and 15 crew members on the Airbus A350, the representative added, clarifying that the plane arrived "safely and normally" at the airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on Friday morning.
Emergency responders reported they got a call just a mere three minutes prior to the plane touched down, and response teams were waiting on the tarmac.
The reasons turbulence is becoming more common - and potentially more dangerous.
During the past year, two dozen individuals were hurt when a separate Delta aircraft, flying from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, Netherlands, experienced "considerable" atmospheric disturbance just 120 minutes into the lengthy trip, and had to make an emergency landing.
Recently, passengers and crew on a certain international flight endured a harrowing five seconds of severe turbulence. A traveler passed away and numerous people sustained injuries, as individuals not fastened in rose out of their seats and crashed back down.
In-flight turbulence is not uncommon during flights, and while occurrences of rough conditions seem to be rising, they are statistically infrequent.
Data suggests that there are approximately five thousand cases of severe-or-greater turbulence annually, out of a sum of in excess of 35 million aircraft departures that now take off globally.
Strong atmospheric disturbance is defined as when the up and down movements of a aircraft passing through unstable air generate more than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - enough to lift you out of your seat if you weren't wearing a seatbelt.
As climate change alters atmospheric conditions, specialists caution that commercial aviation could become more turbulent: shifts in temperature and altered air currents in the higher altitudes are projected to increase the regularity and severity of significant turbulence.