Can you die from airplane turbulence? What causes it, and how to stay safe on a rough flight.
A passenger died and others were injured when a Singapore Airlines flight encountered turbulence while en route to Singapore from London, dropping from 37,000 feet to 31,000 feet in a matter of minutes. It's the latest — and most serious — example of what for many airline passengers is a merely unpleasant experience: turbulence.
The Federal Aviation Administration tracks injuries to airline passengers and crew members due to turbulence during flights. The most recent annual statistics published by the agency show that total injuries ranged from five to 18 per year between 2009 and 2019, although double-digit totals were recorded a majority of the time. Injury reports dropped after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the FAA recording five total injuries due to turbulence in 2020 and six total injuries in 2021.
What is turbulence, and when does it happen?
Turbulence, which causes planes to suddenly jolt while in flight, is considered a fairly normal occurrence and nothing to fear. The movement is caused by "atmospheric pressure, jet streams, air around mountains, cold or warm weather fronts, or thunderstorms," according to the FAA.
Is turbulence getting worse?
"Severe weather increases chances of turbulence, and due to climate change, these kinds of incidents will only continue to grow," Taylor Garland, spokesperson for the Association of Flight Attendants, told CBS News in 2022.
Garland said that the instances of turbulence that led to injuries that summer may have been weather related.
"The summer months are normally very weather prone, with thunderstorms, and so aviation is affected by weather," she said. "So while it's typical, most turbulence is not something to be concerned about."
Climate change is affecting air travel in a few ways: extreme heat can make it harder for airplanes to take off, flooding from storm surges and sea level rise is a greater risk for airports and the risk of mid-air lightning hitting planes has increased.
And what's known as clear-air turbulence — which can't be detected by radar — is increasing. As the jet stream shifts, warmer air, spurred by carbon dioxide emissions, is causing more wind shear at the elevations where planes usually cruise. One 2023 study found moderate clear-air turbulence has increased 37% between 1979-2020 — and researchers found severe clear-air turbulence increased 55% along one of the world's most popular travel routes, over the North Atlantic, in the same time period.
What other flights have been affected recently?
Multiple people were hospitalized in 2023 when a Lufthansa flight from Austin, Texas, to Frankfurt, Germany, was forced to make an emergency landing at Dulles International Airport in Virginia because of turbulence.
The flight was carrying 172 passengers and 12 crew members, according to Lufthansa. The decision to divert the flight to Dulles came as the plane experienced "severe turbulence" while flying over Tennessee, the FAA said in a statement to CBS News. Seven people were transported to local hospitals, Dulles airport said.
A similar incident occurred just one day later, when around 20 passengers and crew members on board a Condor flight from Frankfurt to Mauritius were injured because of turbulence, the German news agency DPA reported. The plane hit a patch of turbulence about two hours before landing, an airline spokesperson said, according to DPA. The extent of their injuries was not immediately clear, but the plane, carrying 272 passengers and 13 crew members, eventually landed safely near Port Louis, the capital city of Mauritius, the news agency reported.
Additional reports of passenger and crew injuries caused by airplane turbulence raised concerns on several occasions in 2022. In December, 36 people were hurt — 20 of them were hospitalized, with 11 suffering serious injuries — when a Hawaiian Airlines flight from Phoenix to Honolulu experienced "severe turbulence," officials said.
Eight people were hospitalized that July after an American Airlines flight from Tampa, Florida, to Nashville, Tennessee, experienced severe "unexpected turbulence" and was forced to land in Alabama, a spokesperson for Birmingham's airport told CBS News.
The incident came weeks after three Southwest Airlines flight attendants and one passenger on a flight from Chicago to Salt Lake City suffered minor injuries after their flight experienced "moderate turbulence," according to the airline.
How to keep safe on board
But if caught unprepared, the sudden jolt caused by turbulence — or anything else — can lead to injuries to passengers and crew members who are not buckled in, the FAA warned.
In 2023, one person was killed when a Bombardier CL30 jet headed from Dillant-Hopkins Airport in New Hampshire to Leesburg Executive Airport in Virginia jolted suddenly. The corporate jet was forced to divert to Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, and the woman, 55-year-old Dana Hyde, died at a nearby hospital of what the state medical examiner said were blunt-force injuries to her head and neck.
In an effort to reduce injuries caused by turbulence, the FAA has pushed new safety measures to reduce the likelihood of commercial airlines experiencing turbulence, such as encouraging pilots to file more reports and working to modernize the Pilot Report System where pilots communicate weather conditions, the agency said.
In addition, the FAA said they are working with air carriers to get passengers to follow seatbelt instructions from crew members by making more frequent announcements during bouts of turbulence or through video presentations, as well as working with air carriers to design training programs to help prevent flight attendants from sustaining turbulence-related injuries.
Garland said passengers' best bet is to follow crew instructions as well as buckling up.
"We would recommend listening to flight attendants and pilots," she told CBS News. "That seatbelt sign comes on for a reason. You should not be up or going to the bathroom. That sign is on for your safety, but some passengers may think 'Oh, I'll be fine,' but with turbulence, you can injure yourself and other people around you."
"Take that seatbelt sign seriously, anytime it is on you should be seated and with your seatbelt on," Garland said.
Garland also said some procedural changes could also help.
"Two things: Increasing time seated before landing, and giving flight attendants the ability to secure the cabin and discontinue service in anticipation for turbulence — that could help limit turbulence-related injuries."
Tracy J. Wholf contributed to this report.