Stay informed with free updates

Simply sign up to the Airlines myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.

Twelve people were injured as a result of turbulence during a Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Ireland, Dublin Airport said on Sunday. 

Emergency services attended to six passengers and six crew members “reporting injuries after the aircraft experienced turbulence while airborne over Turkey”, the airport said in a statement.

Despite the incident, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner — Flight QR017 — landed safely and on schedule just before 1pm local time, the airport said. 

The rough air conditions struck during meal service and lasted less than 20 seconds, according to passengers interviewed by Irish broadcaster RTE.

This comes five days after a bout of extreme turbulence on a Singapore Airlines flight from London to Singapore resulted in a fatality and more than 100 injuries. 

Turbulence remains a consistent though rare cause of non-fatal injuries in aviation, according to the International Air Transport Association, with about 12 injuries on average reported a year. The problem is being exacerbated by changing climate conditions that make such events more frequent and severe.

Clear-air turbulence, which is invisible and unpredictable, remains a particularly significant challenge for the industry.

A 73-year old British man died on Tuesday after flight SQ321 hit turbulence at 37,000 feet over the Myanmar-Thai border, 10 hours into its flight between London Heathrow Airport and Singapore.

That flight made an emergency landing in Bangkok, Thailand. 

Singapore’s prime minister promised a “thorough investigation” into the incident on Wednesday, while Singapore Airlines told news outlets that it had introduced a “more cautious approach” to turbulence, including tightening rules on using seatbelt for its flights. 

Modern aircraft are designed to withstand severe turbulence, but the unpredictability and suddenness of these events continue to pose safety concerns, particularly for flight attendants and passengers not wearing seatbelts during unanticipated disturbances.

Efforts to mitigate turbulence risks include enhancing data collection and real-time reporting systems to better predict and avoid such conditions. 

Washington — Rep. Pat Ryan said Sunday that he sees the small share of Americans — less than 1% — who are active-duty service members in the U.S. military as “deeply problematic as a democracy.”

“When you lose touch between those that are fighting our wars and their families and everyone else, that’s something so essential that we have to figure out how to bring folks together, and get more folks serving,” Ryan said on “Face the Nation” ahead of Memorial Day. 

Ryan, a veteran, said he and his colleagues in Congress have worked to prioritize recruiting within an annual defense bill, citing challenges among each branch of the military with recruiting numbers. 

“We’ve been pushing and a bunch of directions to say that is not acceptable to the Department of Defense,” Ryan said. “And, and we’re starting to see the numbers come up.”

But for the New York Democrat, he said “the most powerful thing” he’s done in Congress is participate in a tradition of hand-washing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to mark Memorial Day. The bipartisan effort was started by Rep. Mike Waltz, who also appeared on “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

Waltz, a Florida Republican who is also a veteran, said of the tradition that it’s “important for the American people” to see the lawmakers of various backgrounds “honoring our forefathers” together, despite their differences. 

“I saw the acrimony and the in-fighting and I said, you know, let’s get a group of veterans together,” Waltz said, explaining how the tradition got its start. “People who really have skin in the game.”

Ryan and Waltz touted working to increase the number of veterans in Congress, saying they’re hoping to get more people who have served in the military or perfromed national service to represent Americans. 

And Waltz noted that when it comes to serving the country, “service doesn’t just have to be in the military.”

“One of the things that we’re both adamant and advocates of is getting us back to national service as a country,” Waltz said. “That doesn’t necessarily have to be in uniform, but it could be with the national park, inner-city tutoring, elderly care. But how do we get young people out in an environment where they’re learning leadership, discipline, followership, serving a cause bigger than themselves and with fellow Americans who may not look or come from the same backgrounds as them.”

Waltz suggested that the government incentivize service, proposing that young people could perform a year of service after graduation and receive a benefit. 

“I think we need to rethink service as a country,” he added. 

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Six Nato countries are planning to develop a “drone wall” to help defend their borders with Russia after a series of provocations, ranging from forced migration to attempts to amend the frontiers.

Ministers from Finland, Norway, Poland and the three Baltic states said at the weekend that they had discussed creating a co-ordinated system of drones along their borders with Russia to prevent smuggling and further provocations, and to help with defence.

“This is a completely new thing — a drone wall stretching from Norway to Poland — and the goal is to use drones and other technologies to protect our borders . . . against provocations from unfriendly countries and to prevent smuggling,” Lithuania’s interior minister Agnė Bilotaitė told the Baltic News Service.

All six countries have faced so-called hybrid attacks — non-military measures that tend to have an element of deniability — from Russia in recent months and years, including undocumented asylum seekers from Africa and the Middle East being sent over their borders.

Mari Rantanen, Finland’s interior minister, told public broadcaster Yle that the drone wall plan would “improve in time” and could help defend the Nordic country’s 1,340km-long border with Russia.

Details of the timing and how the drone wall would work were not provided. Bilotaitė said each country needed to do its “homework” and suggested that EU funds could be used as well.

The frontline Nato states have stepped up warnings about Russia’s intentions after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and its subsequent moving of its economy to a war footing.

Russia’s defence ministry published a draft proposal last week on its website on unilaterally expanding its maritime borders with Lithuania and Finland, before deleting the plan.

A day later, Russian border guards removed 25 buoys from Estonian waters that were marking the border, sparking outrage and messages of support for Tallinn from Nato and a number of its member states.

Many Nato countries believe Russia could test Nato’s border within the next five to 10 years, while intelligence services have uncovered a number of assumed sabotage operations on their soil.

Russia’s war against Ukraine has highlighted the importance of drones, with both sides using them in attacks. Several Nato countries have responded by setting up or intensifying their drone warfare units.

The six Nato countries also discussed plans at the meeting for evacuating large parts of their population in the event of a conflict. Finnish officials, for instance, have expressed surprise that Ukraine has kept its civilian population in or close to the frontlines, saying that the defence plans of the Nordic country involve evacuating border populations.