Serious injuries from in-flight turbulence are rare, but scientists say they may be becoming more common as climate change alters the jet stream.
On Wednesday, 25 people were injured on a flight from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam that struck severe turbulence and was forced to divert to Minneapolis.
The disturbance is one of several turbulence-impacted flights reported this year. It also raises awareness about aviation safety ranging from January’s midair collision over Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people, to the plane that flipped over as it crashed in Toronto in March, to last weekend's smoking jet at Denver International Airport, where passengers slid down an emergency slide.
25 injured after turbulence hits Salt Lake City flight headed to Europe:
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.
