Six passengers and six cabin crew sustained injuries due to severe turbulence on a Qatar Airways flight QR107 from Doha to Dublin. The incident occurred while the aircraft was flying over Turkey. Despite the turbulence, the flight managed to land safely at Dublin Airport around 13:00, where it was met by emergency services, including the police and fire department. Unfortunately, this comes on the heels of another tragic incident in which a 73-year-old British man lost his life during a Singapore Airlines flight from London to Singapore, which also experienced severe turbulence. This incident resulted in injuries to 53 passengers and one crew member, prompting the pilots to make an emergency landing in Thailand.
Fatalities and serious injuries from turbulence are typically very rare as flight crews can often predict bad weather and rough air in advance, plus are trained to deal with the effects.
Climate change is making turbulence worse. Last year, a study by meteorologists at the University of Reading in the UK found that skies are up to 55 per cent bumpier than four decades ago due to climate change.
Warmer air resulting from carbon dioxide emissions is altering the air currents in the jet stream, exacerbating clear-air turbulence in the North Atlantic and globally.
