EDITORIAL Aircraft are hit with turbulence every day, but incidents severe enough to injure passengers and crew also seem to be on the rise. This week, an accident aboard a Turkish Airlines jet was reported in which a flight attendant who was just two months into the job was flung to the ceiling before falling hard on the floor, leaving them suffering from a broken backbone. This report followed injuries aboard a Qatar Airways plane over Turkey on Monday and last week’s horrific incident in which a Singapore Airlines jet hit turbulence, one of the worst instances of such incidents in airline history .

A 73-year-old British man died of a suspected heart attack and dozens were treated for injuries when the aircraft hit clear-air turbulence on a flight from London to Singapore. And for members of the cabin crew, their workplace can be particularly dangerous. While passengers can largely remain seated and belted in, crew don’t when they’re working, making them especially vulnerable to that dreaded clear-air turbulence.

Turbulence is the leading cause of non-fatal injuries aboard aircraft, and there are signs they are becoming more common and severe as global warming affects weather patterns and the earth’s atmosphere. Paul Williams, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Reading in England, said there was strong evidence turbulence is increasing because of climate change. Turbulence is essentially unstable air that moves in a non-predictable fashion, and .