A Number of Injured as Rough Air Hits A Delta Airlines Aircraft Landing at Sydney

Several people sustained injuries following a Delta Airlines aircraft originating in Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia encountered turbulence Friday morning.

Flight DL41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it touched down at Sydney Airport, a company official stated. Several cabin crew members sustained injuries.

Local paramedics said they treated five individuals, and transported three of them to the hospital with relatively minor issues that included back pain and migraines. The patients' ages ranged from their 30s up to the 70s.

The event represents the most recent case of planes being hit by atmospheric disturbance, with experts saying that climate change is a major factor.

On board were 245 people and fifteen staff members on the aircraft, the representative said, adding that the plane touched down "safely" at the airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on Friday morning.

Emergency responders said they were alerted just only 180 seconds before the plane touched down, and emergency vehicles were waiting on the tarmac.

The reasons turbulence is growing increasingly prevalent - and potentially more dangerous.

In the previous year, 25 people sustained injuries when a Delta Airlines flight, flying from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, Netherlands, experienced "significant" rough air just 120 minutes into the long-haul flight, and had to make an precautionary landing.

Recently, those on board on a certain international flight went through a frightening five seconds bout of severe turbulence. An individual passed away and many were hurt, as individuals not fastened in rose out of their seats and crashed back down.

Bumpy air is not uncommon during flights, and while instances of rough conditions appear to be increasing, they are statistically infrequent.

Research indicates that there are an estimated thousands of instances of severe or worse turbulence each year, out of a overall number of over 35 million flights that are conducted globally.

Severe turbulence is categorized as when the sudden jolts of a jet experiencing disturbed air generate more than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - sufficient force to propel you from your seat if you did not have on a restraint.

As global warming alters weather patterns, researchers alert that air travel could become less smooth: warming trends and altered air currents in the upper atmosphere are expected to increase the regularity and severity of significant turbulence.