Passengers In Hospital After Low-Cost Airline Gets Hit By Severe Turbulence

A JetBlue flight met with "sudden severe turbulence" that led to the hospitalisation of at least eight people.

On Monday, JetBlue flight 1256 was travelling from Guayaquil, Ecuador to Florida when it experienced rough skies near Jamaica before landing safely at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The aircraft landed at around 5.30 am ET on Monday.

As soon as the flight landed, it was met with medical personnel on the ground. Out of the eight people sent to hospital, seven were passengers and one was a crewmember. Their injuries are being assessed and treated in the hospital. However, JetBlue has not revealed the conditions of the passengers as yet.

"JetBlue will work to support our customers and crewmembers," the low-cost American airline said.

It is still not known if the injured passengers and crewmembers were wearing seatbelts or not.

The Airbus A320 aircraft, meanwhile, has been taken out of service as of now and is being inspected. The case will now be investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration.

Turbulence can be extremely tough to predict. There are three types of turbulence. One is a Mountain wave, which occurs when the wind gets redirected after it hits a mountain. Second is Convective, which is associated with storms. The third one is Clear air, which is the most common but the hardest to predict, and the type that worsens due to climate change.

Last week, an initial NTSB report stated that two passengers and two crew members were seriously injured, along with 13 other passengers who suffered minor injuries, after a Delta Airlines flight from Milan to Atlanta encountered turbulence upon descent last month. The report further revealed that the aircraft "sustained minor damage". The incident took place on Aug. 29.

In August there was another turbulence-related incident when two flight attendants were injured after a United Airlines flight from Newark to Punta Cana experienced the turmoil in air.

In March, around seven people were hospitalised after sustaining injuries due to turbulence mid-air. The incident happened with passengers of a Lufthansa flight that was travelling from Austin, Texas, headed for Frankfurt, Germany, and en route was struck by "significant turbulence" and had to be diverted to a Washington, D.C. airport.

Earlier a report emerged about an incident involving another low-cost airline. A Jet2 flight that was travelling from Scotland to Spain made an emergency landing after it nearly ran out of fuel. After being in the air for over three-and-a-half hours, the flight landed at Palma de Mallorca Airport.

This was around the same time when severe thunderstorms with hurricane-force winds struck Mallorca. The severe weather meant the flight was stranded in the air for quite some time as the pilot was ordered into a holding pattern. The aircraft, which had 187 passengers and six crew members, was eating into its fuel reserves.

As the hold time increased, the pilot became aware that the fuel was reaching critically low levels. They had no choice but to call in for an emergency landing.