A Number of Injured as Rough Air Impacts A Delta Airlines Aircraft Arriving in Sydney

Multiple passengers and crew sustained injuries following a Delta Airlines flight from LA to Sydney, Australia experienced significant turbulence Friday morning.

The flight, numbered 41 "went through a short bout of rough air" as it touched down at the Sydney airport, a company official stated. Four flight attendants required medical attention.

The New South Wales Ambulance Service said they evaluated five individuals, and transferred three of them to a medical facility with relatively minor issues that included back pain and head pain. The injured were between their 30s to 70s.

The event represents the latest incident of planes experiencing atmospheric disturbance, with experts saying that climate change is a key driver.

The aircraft was carrying nearly 250 travelers and fifteen staff members on the Airbus A350, the official noted, clarifying that the plane arrived "without further incident" at Sydney Airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on the day in question.

Emergency responders indicated they got a call just three minutes before the plane landed, and emergency vehicles were waiting on the tarmac.

The reasons turbulence is becoming increasingly prevalent - and more severe.

During the past year, twenty-five passengers and crew were hurt when another Delta jet, travelling from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, Netherlands, hit "considerable" rough air just a couple of hours into the transoceanic journey, and diverted for an unscheduled landing.

Recently, passengers and crew on a Singapore Airlines jet endured a harrowing short but intense of severe turbulence. A traveler passed away and numerous people sustained injuries, as unbelted passengers rose out of their seats and crashed back down.

Bumpy air is not uncommon during flights, and while instances of significant turbulence seem to be rising, they are still very rare.

Estimates show that there are approximately thousands of instances of severe-or-greater turbulence annually, out of a overall number of more than 35 million journeys that currently occur worldwide.

Severe turbulence is defined as when the sudden jolts of a aircraft experiencing disturbed air exert more than 1.5g-force on your body - sufficient force to propel you from your seat if you did not have on a seatbelt.

As climate change shifts weather patterns, specialists caution that commercial aviation could become more turbulent: shifts in temperature and altered air currents in the jet stream level are expected to increase the occurrence and strength of significant turbulence.