A Delta Airlines flight heading from southern California to Seattle on Wednesday was forced to make an emergency landing after five persons were injured due to severe turbulence.
Multiple media accounts said the plane, an Embraer 175 aircraft operated by Compass Airlines under contract with Delta, was forced to land in Reno, Nevada.
The Delta flight is believed to have been impacted by the Pineapple Express, a river of warm air loaded with moisture, moving in on California.
The weather system, headed east from near Hawaii, is the wettest storm on the U.S. West Coast this season. It has swamped cars, flooded vineyards and forced hundreds of Californians to evacuate their homes Wednesday to escape the threat of mudslides.
