A Number of Injured as Turbulence Strikes Delta Flight into Sydney, Australia

Multiple passengers and crew were hurt when a Delta Airlines flight traveling from LA to Sydney, Australia was hit by turbulence this past Friday.

Flight DL41 "went through a short bout of rough air" as it touched down at Sydney Airport, a company official stated. Four flight attendants sustained injuries.

Emergency medical services stated they evaluated five patients, and transported a trio to a medical facility with relatively minor issues that such as pain in the back and migraines. The injured were between their 30s to 70s.

This marks the latest incident of aircraft encountering atmospheric disturbance, with experts indicating that shifting climate patterns is a major factor.

The aircraft was carrying 245 passengers and a crew of 15 on the Airbus A350, the representative said, adding that the plane arrived "safely" at Sydney Airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday morning.

Emergency responders said they were alerted just a mere three minutes prior to the plane landed, and emergency vehicles were standing by on the runway.

Why plane turbulence is becoming more frequent - and more severe.

During the past year, 25 people were hurt when a separate Delta aircraft, travelling from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, experienced "significant" turbulence just a couple of hours into the transoceanic journey, and was forced to make an emergency landing.

Earlier this year, those on board on a Singapore Airlines jet experienced a harrowing short but intense of severe turbulence. An individual died and dozens were injured, as those without seatbelts rose out of their seats and crashed back down.

Bumpy air is not uncommon on aircraft journeys, and while occurrences of strong or severe turbulence appear to be increasing, they are statistically infrequent.

Research indicates that there are an estimated thousands of instances of significant in-flight disturbance every year, out of a overall number of more than 35 million journeys that now take off worldwide.

Intense turbulence is defined as when the sudden jolts of a jet passing through unstable air exert greater than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - enough to lift you out of your seat if you did not have on a safety belt.

As global warming modifies the conditions in the sky, researchers alert that commercial aviation could become more turbulent: shifts in temperature and shifting wind patterns in the upper atmosphere are expected to boost the occurrence and strength of severe turbulence.