A Number of Injured as Rough Air Strikes A Delta Airlines Plane Arriving in Sydney

Several people have been injured when a Delta aircraft from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia was hit by significant turbulence Friday morning.

Delta Flight 41 "went through a short bout of rough air" as it touched down at the Sydney airport, a representative for the carrier informed. Four flight attendants sustained injuries.

The New South Wales Ambulance Service stated they evaluated a total of five people, and transported a trio to a medical facility with relatively minor issues that included spinal discomfort and migraines. The injured spanned from their thirties and seventies.

The event represents the latest incident of commercial jets encountering atmospheric disturbance, with researchers saying that climate change is a major factor.

The aircraft was carrying nearly 250 travelers and a crew of 15 on the wide-body jet, the representative noted, adding that the plane arrived "without further incident" at Sydney Airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on the day in question.

Paramedics said they got a call just a mere three minutes ahead of the plane touched down, and emergency vehicles were ready and waiting at the airport.

Why plane turbulence is getting more common - and potentially more dangerous.

In the previous year, twenty-five passengers and crew sustained injuries when a separate Delta aircraft, on a route from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, Netherlands, hit "significant" rough air just two hours into the long-haul flight, and diverted for an precautionary landing.

Earlier this year, those on board on a Singapore Airlines jet experienced a harrowing five seconds of severe turbulence. An individual lost their life and many were hurt, as those without seatbelts lifted out of their seats and fell back down.

Bumpy air is not uncommon during flights, and while occurrences of rough conditions 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 sum of more than 35 million journeys that are conducted worldwide.

Intense turbulence is described as when the vertical motions of a jet experiencing rough air masses apply in excess of 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - enough to throw you from your seat if you did not have on a seatbelt.

As global warming alters atmospheric conditions, researchers alert that commercial aviation could become bumpier: temperature changes and altered air currents in the jet stream level are likely to heighten the regularity and severity of significant turbulence.