Nine people were injured on an inbound Northwest Airlines flight yesterday morning because of moderate turbulence, according to airline and state officials.

Northwest Flight

 

Nine injured on a Northwest Airlines flight today from Japan to Honolulu. The airlines says eight passengers and one flight attendant were injured when the plane hit bad turbulence.

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It was the second such incident on a Japan-Hawaii Northwest Air flight in 13 months.

Northwest Airlines Flight 22, from Narita, Japan, landed at Honolulu Airport at 8:10 a.m. yesterday. Four people on board required medical treatment, said Tammy Mori, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation.

A flight attendant suffered head and neck injuries and was taken to the Queen's Medical Center in serious but stable condition by an American Medical Response ambulance crew.

Two passengers suffered minor injuries, one with a hip injury and the other with arm and neck injuries. They were taken to Straub Clinic & Hospital, also by AMR.

A third passenger also had minor injuries and was treated at the airport, Mori said.

Mori said the airport's fire and rescue crews responded. The flight had 285 passengers on board.

There were five other passengers who reported some bumps and bruises but did not require medical attention, said Leslie Parker, airline corporate communications coordinator.

The flight experienced moderate turbulence due to inclement weather, Parker said. She said Northwest apologizes to its customers for the inconvenience. Parker provided no other details, including where the flight experienced the turbulence.

On Christmas Day 2007 a Northwest Air flight attendant was seriously hurt when Flight 16 from Osaka encountered severe turbulence at 38,000 feet over the North Pacific.

According to a report Jan. 14 from the National Transportation Safety Board, two flight attendants in the aft galley misunderstood instructions to sit down and buckle up and were thrown off their feet when the plane lurched downward, then upward. When they hit the floor, the attendants were subjected to deceleration equal to 2.2 times the force of gravity, which is considered “;severe to extreme”; turbulence, the NTSB said.

One of the attendants and two of 281 passengers sustained minor injuries, the report said.