A Number of Hurt as Turbulence Impacts A Delta Airlines Aircraft into Sydney

Several people sustained injuries after a Delta Airlines jet from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia experienced turbulence on Friday morning.

Delta Flight 41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it made its approach and landed at the Sydney airport, a company official stated. A number of the onboard staff required medical attention.

Emergency medical services reported they evaluated five individuals, and transferred a trio to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries that comprised spinal discomfort and migraines. Those affected were between their 30s to 70s.

This marks the most recent case of planes experiencing atmospheric disturbance, with aviation specialists pointing out that climate change is a key driver.

On board were 245 passengers and fifteen staff members on the wide-body jet, the Delta spokesperson added, adding that the plane arrived "without further incident" at the airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on Friday.

The NSW Ambulance Service said they were alerted just only 180 seconds prior to the plane arrived, and emergency vehicles were standing by on the runway.

Why in-flight bumpiness is becoming more common - and more severe.

During the past year, 25 people sustained injuries when another Delta jet, on a route from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, Netherlands, encountered "significant" rough air just 120 minutes into the long-haul flight, and was forced to make an emergency landing.

Recently, travelers and staff on a Singapore Airlines flight endured a terrifying brief five-second period of extreme instability. One passenger died and many were hurt, as unbelted passengers rose out of their seats and fell back down.

Turbulence is a common occurrence on aircraft journeys, and while instances of strong or severe turbulence appear to be increasing, they are still very rare.

Research indicates that there are approximately five thousand cases of severe or worse turbulence every year, out of a overall number of in excess of 35 million journeys that currently occur globally.

Severe turbulence is defined as when the vertical motions of a plane passing through rough air masses exert greater than 1.5g-force on your body - a strong enough force to throw you from your seat if you were not fastened by a seatbelt.

As global warming shifts the conditions in the sky, researchers alert that flying could become bumpier: shifts in temperature and shifting wind patterns in the upper atmosphere are expected to boost the regularity and severity of significant turbulence.