A Number of Affected as Turbulence Hits Delta Flight Landing at Sydney

Several people have been injured when a Delta Airlines jet originating in LA to Sydney, Australia experienced significant turbulence Friday morning.

The flight, numbered 41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it touched down at Sydney Airport, an airline spokesperson told. Several cabin crew members required medical attention.

The New South Wales Ambulance Service stated they evaluated a total of five people, and took three of them to a medical facility with relatively minor issues that included pain in the back and headaches. The injured spanned from their thirties and seventies.

It is the most recent case of planes being hit by turbulence, with aviation specialists pointing out that shifting climate patterns is a key driver.

There were 245 passengers and a crew of 15 on the wide-body jet, the representative said, stating that the plane landed "without further incident" at the airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday.

Paramedics indicated they got a call just three minutes prior to the plane landed, and response teams were waiting on the tarmac.

Why in-flight bumpiness is getting more frequent - and potentially more dangerous.

During the past year, twenty-five passengers and crew were hurt when a Delta Airlines flight, on a route from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, Netherlands, hit "severe" atmospheric disturbance just 120 minutes into the long-haul flight, and was forced to make an unscheduled landing.

Recently, passengers and crew on a Singapore Airlines flight went through a terrifying five seconds of severe turbulence. An individual lost their life and many were hurt, as those without seatbelts were thrown from their seats and fell back down.

In-flight turbulence is fairly routine during flights, and while occurrences of significant turbulence seem to be rising, they are remained quite uncommon.

Estimates show that there are around five thousand cases of significant in-flight disturbance annually, out of a total of in excess of 35 million aircraft departures that currently occur globally.

Severe turbulence is defined as when the vertical motions of a aircraft experiencing unstable air generate in excess of 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - a strong enough force to throw you from your seat if you were not fastened by a restraint.

As a changing climate shifts weather patterns, specialists caution that commercial aviation could become less smooth: warming trends and changing jet streams in the jet stream level are expected to boost the regularity and severity of significant turbulence.