LONDON (AP) — Italian authorities have launched an investigation after two easyJet flight attendants were injured when their flight from Corfu to London Gatwick Airport was hit by turbulence earlier this week.
As a result of the incident, the pilot made an unscheduled landing at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport at 1:48 p.m. on Monday. The two crew members received medical treatment in Rome and the passengers completed their journey on a replacement aircraft, easyJet said in a statement.
Italy’s Civil Aviation Authority has launched a safety investigation into the incident, which it classified as an accident due to “the type and severity of injuries reported.” While neither the agency nor easyJet released details of the injuries, news reports indicated that one flight attendant broke her leg and another suffered a badly sprained ankle.
The incident comes less than three months after a 73-year-old British man died of a suspected heart attack and dozens of other passengers were injured when a Singapore Airlines flight ran into severe turbulence above the Indian Ocean.
Although deaths from turbulence are rare, injuries have piled up In recent years, some meteorologists and aviation analysts have also reported an increasing number of reports of aircraft experiencing turbulence.
Meteorologists point to the impact of climate change, which is increasing the temperature difference between the warm and cold air masses in the upper atmosphere, which together form the jet stream of air that flows from east to west around the world. These air masses collide and disrupt the jet stream, creating more turbulence.
