Several Injured as Turbulence Strikes Delta Flight Landing at Sydney, Australia

Multiple passengers and crew sustained injuries after a Delta Airlines aircraft originating in Los Angeles to Sydney encountered turbulence Friday morning.

Delta Flight 41 "went through a short bout of rough air" as it made its approach and landed at Sydney Airport, a company official informed. A number of the onboard staff required medical attention.

The New South Wales Ambulance Service reported they evaluated a total of five people, and transferred three of them to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries that such as back pain and head pain. The patients' ages were between their thirties and seventies.

It is the newest example of aircraft being hit by atmospheric disturbance, with aviation specialists saying that shifting climate patterns is a major factor.

There were nearly 250 travelers and fifteen staff members on the aircraft, the Delta spokesperson noted, clarifying that the plane landed "without further incident" at the airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on the day in question.

The NSW Ambulance Service said they were alerted just a mere three minutes ahead of the plane arrived, and emergency vehicles were waiting on the tarmac.

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

Last year, 25 people were injured when another Delta jet, travelling from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, encountered "severe" atmospheric disturbance just two hours into the lengthy trip, and was forced to make an emergency landing.

Recently, those on board on a Singapore Airlines jet went through a frightening short but intense bout of severe turbulence. A traveler passed away and numerous people sustained injuries, as those without seatbelts rose out of their seats and were slammed back.

Turbulence is fairly routine on aircraft journeys, and while instances of significant turbulence appear to be increasing, they are still very rare.

Estimates show that there are an estimated thousands of instances of severe-or-greater turbulence each year, out of a overall number of in excess of 35 million aircraft departures that currently occur around the world.

Severe turbulence is defined as when the vertical motions of a aircraft experiencing rough air masses generate more than a significant G-force on your body - a strong enough force to throw you from your seat if you weren't wearing a seatbelt.

As global warming alters the conditions in the sky, specialists caution that commercial aviation could become more turbulent: shifts in temperature and changing jet streams in the upper atmosphere are expected to increase the occurrence and strength of significant turbulence.