MINNEAPOLIS: A Delta Air Lines flight from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam was hit by serious turbulence, sending 25 people on board to hospitals and forcing the flight to divert to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the airline said.
The Airbus A330-900, carrying 275 customers and 13-member crew, landed around 7:45 p.m. Wednesday. The airport fire department and paramedics met the flight. The 25 were taken to hospitals for evaluation and treatment, the airline said.
One passenger said people who weren’t wearing seat belts were thrown about the cabin.
“They hit the ceiling, and then they fell to the ground,” Leann Clement-Nash told ABC News. “And the carts also hit the ceiling and fell to the ground and people were injured. It happened several times, so it was really scary.”
Delta said in a statement: “We are grateful for the support of all emergency responders involved.”
Serious injuries from in-flight turbulence are rare, but scientists say they may be becoming more common as climate change alters the jet stream.
The disturbance Wednesday is one of several turbulence-impacted flights reported this year. It also raises awareness about aviation safety ranging from of January’s midair collision over Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people, to last weekend’s smoking jet at Denver International Airport, where passengers slid down an emergency slide.
Regarding turbulence, five people were taken to a North Carolina hospital for evaluation in June after an American Airlines flight from Miami hit turbulence on its way to Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The plane landed safely.
Earlier that month, severe storms in southern Germany forced a Ryanair flight to make an emergency landing after violent turbulence injured nine people on board, German police said. The flight was traveling from Berlin to Milan with 179 passengers and six crew members. Eight passengers and one crew member were hurt.
A United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Singapore experienced severe turbulence in March. At the time, the plane carrying 174 passengers and 14 crew members were flying over the Philippines. Five people were injured and the plane was able to land safely in Singapore.
Several flights were diverted to Waco, Texas, on March 3, because of turbulence. Five people were injured aboard one of them, a United Express plane flying from Springfield, Missouri, to Houston.
A man was killed when a Singapore Airlines flight hit severe turbulence in May 2024, the first person to die from turbulence on a major airline in several decades.
