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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Luca Ittimani and Natasha May

Three flight attendants taken to hospital after Delta flight hits severe turbulence on descent into Sydney

A Delta Airlines plane
A Delta Air Lines plane from Los Angeles to Sydney hit turbulence just before landing that left four crew members injured. Photograph: Gene J Puskar/AP

Three flight attendants were taken to hospital from Sydney airport on Friday morning after their plane hit a bad patch of turbulence just before landing.

Delta Air Lines flight 41 from Los Angeles encountered the turbulence during its descent into Sydney, with four crew members injured, a Delta spokesperson confirmed.

The Airbus A350 had been carrying 245 passengers, none of whom reported injuries, and 15 crew members.

Flightradar24 showed the plane touched down just after 6.40am local time, coming to a stop at 6.47am.

Ambulances were called to the airport about 6.45am, a spokesperson for Ambulance NSW said.

On arrival at the scene, paramedics assessed five patients.

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Those patients included a woman in her 60s and a man in his 70s, both of whom had back pain, a woman in her 30s with a headache and back pain, a woman in her 70s with knee pain and another person of unspecified age and gender with eye pain.

Three were taken to Royal Prince Alfred hospital with “minor injuries” to different parts of their body, some to their back, the ambulance spokesperson said.

The Delta spokesperson said: “Nothing is more important than the safety of our people and our customers, and our priority is taking care of the impacted crew members.”

Patients at the hospital declined to share their condition with the media.

The flight had been due to arrive from the south-west but turned north-west about 50km from the New South Wales coast, to fly into the airport from the north.

Sydney experienced strong onshore winds on Friday morning but they appeared unconnected to Tropical Cyclone Narelle, which at the time was approaching the far north Queensland coast.

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