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Maybe I’m in my middle-aged “You-Kids-Stay-Off-My-Lawn!”-Phase. I know I grew more cautious in general after my daughter was born. (Hey, did you know that streets, roads, and freeways have these things called “speed limits”? When did that start?!)
But I need to say something to my fellow airline passengers: Keep your goshdarn seatbelts fastened. (“Goshdarn” is the very watered-down version of what I really wanted to say. You get my drift.)
Why the outrage?
You probably heard about Wednesday afternoon’s Delta Air Lines flight 56, which departed from Salt Lake City (SLC) for Amsterdam (AMS). Somewhere over South Dakota, the Airbus A330-900 encountered what Delta called “significant turbulence.”
I chatted with Charlie Mortling, our resident aviation industry expert, and this data appears to show the plane’s changes in altitude during the turbulence.

My guess is that data also includes some evasive action taken by the pilots.
The flight diverted to Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP). More than two dozen passengers and crew were taken to local hospitals.
“All seven crew members who were taken to area hospitals after the flight landed were treated and released by Thursday morning,” Delta said. “All customers who were evaluated at the hospital and willing to share their status with Delta have also been released.”
Yikes, right?
Passenger Leeann Nash told ABC News:
“There was actually no warning. It was a very abrupt, hard hit…If you didn’t have your seat belt on — everyone that didn’t — they hit the ceiling, and then they fell to the ground, and the carts also hit the ceiling and fell to the ground, and people were injured, and it happened several times, so it was really scary.”
Bold mine.
I know seatbelts aren’t the most comfortable things in the world.
Obviously, you can’t fasten your seatbelt when you’re standing in line for the lavatory or taking a walk to stretch your legs.
Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
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