Today, Aviation Law Group, P.S., and Mortensen & Milne filed suit against Delta Air Lines in the Third Judicial District Court for Salt Lake County, Utah, on behalf of twenty passengers injured on Delta Flight 56.
Delta Flight 56 departed Salt Lake City for Amsterdam on July 30, 2025. Less than an hour later, the Airbus A330-941 encountered extreme turbulence over Wyoming. The flight diverted to Minneapolis-St. Paul. Dozens of people required medical evaluation. Many passengers described a terrifying cabin scene, with people, carts, food, and personal items thrown through the aircraft.
The complaint alleges this was not simply a rough patch of air. Despite multiple warnings, Delta Flight 56 was flown into an area with dangerous convective activity and extreme turbulence, with the seatbelt sign off, beverage service underway, and without any warning to passengers or the flight attendants.
Shortly after the accident, we wrote about Delta Flight 56 and the disturbing pattern of preventable turbulence accidents in modern airline operations. Since then, our investigation has developed new information.
The complaint alleges that before the encounter, Delta and its crew had access to multiple layers of weather information and operational support. That included National Weather Service information, a SIGMET warning of embedded thunderstorms along the route of flight, Delta’s own weather and flight planning tools, Electronic Flight Bags available to the pilots, predictive turbulence data, company operations support, and Delta’s in-house meteorology resources.
The complaint further alleges that approximately twenty minutes before the accident, Salt Lake Center Air Traffic Control warned the flight crew of moderate, heavy, to extreme convective activity at the aircraft’s 12 o’clock position and 74 miles ahead. The crew acknowledged seeing the weather and visually confirming the weather ahead.
Other aircraft in the area were requesting deviations, and Air Traffic Control, without prompting, even approved Delta 56 to deviate from course.
Delta Flight 56 did not deviate.
The complaint alleges that Flight 56 did not merely encounter a bumpy ride; it encountered extreme turbulence. For approximately two and a half minutes at 37,000 feet, the aircraft was thrown into a violent upset.
Flight data show repeated abrupt climbs and descents, with vertical forces ranging from approximately +1.75 g to -0.5 g. The aircraft pitched from approximately 10 degrees nose-up to 5 degrees nose-down, rolled as far as 40 degrees left wing down, and exceeded its maximum operating speed.
During this event, the complaint alleges, the flight crew was unable to control the aircraft. The autopilot disengaged, and the first officer had to perform manual upset recovery procedures to regain control.
Inside the cabin, the same forces were acting on passengers, flight attendants, carts, food, bags, phones, and everything else that was not secured. People struck ceilings, overhead bins, seat assemblies, and cabin fixtures. The complaint alleges injuries ranging from head and spinal trauma, concussions, lacerations, and broken bones to lasting post-traumatic stress disorder and fear of flying.
The lawsuit also focuses on what happened after the aircraft was recovered.
The complaint alleges that, within minutes, Delta’s crew knew or should have known that passengers and flight attendants were injured. The crew also knew or should have known that the aircraft had exceeded its maximum operating speed, raising concerns about potential damage to the aircraft.
Despite that, the complaint alleges, Delta did not declare an emergency, did not request expedited routing from air traffic control, and declined expedited handling when asked if it was needed. Instead of landing at a nearer suitable airport, such as Salt Lake City or Denver, the aircraft continued for another hour and a half or more to Minneapolis-St. Paul, where Delta had a large hub presence.
For the people in the cabin, that decision mattered. Passengers were injured, frightened, covered in debris, and listening to others in pain. The complaint alleges they were not given adequate information from the flight deck about what had happened or whether the aircraft was safe to continue.
Because Delta Flight 56 was an international flight, the lawsuit includes claims under the Montreal Convention. The Montreal Convention is the treaty that governs many passenger injury claims arising from international air travel.
Under the Convention, an international air carrier is liable when a passenger suffers injury caused by an accident on board the aircraft. The complaint alleges that the violent turbulence event on Flight 56 was an “accident” under the Convention and that Delta is strictly liable for the resulting injuries.
Turbulence and severe weather are not new phenomena, and this accident could have been prevented.
Today’s airlines have weather radar, dispatchers, meteorologists, SIGMETs, pilot reports, satellite data, air traffic control information, and real-time flight planning tools. Sadly, in this case, Delta did not heed those warnings, and the consequences were severe.
Aviation Law Group is seeking information from anyone who was on board this flight. If you were aboard Delta Flight 56 on July 30, 2025, or if a family member was on the flight, you may contact Aviation Law Group confidentially at dubose@aviationlawgroup.com or 206-249-9975. We are also seeking witnesses and additional information. You do not need to be a plaintiff to speak with us.
Why Aviation Law Group
Aviation Law Group, P.S. is devoted exclusively to aviation accident litigation. We do not handle car wrecks, dog bites, or slip-and-falls. Aviation is all we do, and we have done it for decades, from general aviation crashes to airline disasters and claims under international treaties such as the Montreal Convention.
What sets ALG apart is our aviation background. Every one of our attorneys is either a licensed pilot or an aircraft mechanic, and several are both. Our lawyers have thousands of hours of flight and instructional time. They have also worked on aircraft, reviewed maintenance records, signed off inspections, studied cockpit decision-making, and investigated the operational failures that lead to aviation accidents.
That experience matters in a case like Delta Flight 56. This case requires more than a review of medical records. It requires understanding convective weather, turbulence avoidance, cockpit weather tools, dispatch responsibilities, flight crew decision-making, passenger safety procedures, upset recovery, diversion decisions, and the Montreal Convention.
It requires knowing what records to demand, what flight data can show, what airline operations departments do, and where the gap often appears between what the safety system warns and what the crew ultimately does.
ALG maintains offices in Washington, Hawaii, and Florida, with attorneys licensed in Washington, Hawaii, Alaska, California, Texas, New Mexico, Vermont, and Florida. Through association with local counsel, ALG represents clients in all 50 states and internationally. In this case, ALG is working with Mortensen & Milne, a Salt Lake City premier trial firm, to represent passengers injured on Delta Flight 56.
If you were affected by Delta Flight 56 and would like to understand what happened, share information, or discuss your options, we would be honored to speak with you in a confidential, no-obligation consultation.
Feel free to contact us at dubose@aviationlawgroup.com or 206-249-9975.