Lufthansa Flight to Frankfurt Hit by Severe Turbulence,11 Injured

According to Lufthansa, the Boeing 747-8 was carrying 329 passengers and 19 crew members. The turbulence was brief and occurred in an intertropical convergence zone.

"Unfortunately, five passengers and six crew members suffered mostly minor injuries," a Lufthansa spokesperson told Reuters in an email. “The safety of the flight was not in jeopardy at any time.”

Lufthansa said that those injured were immediately taken for medical treatment after the aircraft landed safely in Frankfurt.

In May, a Singapore Airlines-operated Boeing 777 experienced extreme turbulence that left one passenger dead. The flight from London was forced to make an emergency landing in Bangkok.

Several other passengers and crew suffered skull, brain and spine injuries when the plane hit sudden extreme turbulence at 37,000 feet over the Irrawaddy Basin.

A week later, 12 people were injured when a Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Dublin struck severe bumps.

Turbulence-related airline accidents are the most common type, according to a 2021 study by the US National Transportation Safety Board.

From 2009 through 2018, the US agency found that turbulence accounted for more than a third of reported airline accidents and most resulted in one or more serious injuries, but no aircraft damage.