Several Hurt as Turbulence Strikes Delta Aircraft Landing at Sydney

Several people sustained injuries following a Delta flight traveling from LA to Sydney experienced turbulence on Friday morning.

Flight DL41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it landed at the Sydney airport, a representative for the carrier told. A number of the onboard staff required medical attention.

Local paramedics said they evaluated five individuals, and transported three of them to a medical facility with minor injuries that comprised back pain and head pain. The injured ranged from their 30s to 70s.

This marks the most recent case of planes experiencing turbulence, with experts indicating that climate change is a significant contributor.

There were 245 passengers and a crew of 15 on the Airbus A350, the official added, adding that the plane arrived "without further incident" at Sydney Airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on the day in question.

The NSW Ambulance Service reported they were alerted just three minutes before the plane landed, and emergency vehicles were standing by on the runway.

The reasons turbulence is getting more common - and more severe.

In the previous year, 25 people were injured when a separate Delta aircraft, travelling from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, Netherlands, hit "considerable" atmospheric disturbance just two hours into the transoceanic journey, and had to make an precautionary landing.

Recently, travelers and staff on a Singapore Airlines jet endured a terrifying short but intense of severe turbulence. An individual died and numerous people sustained injuries, as unbelted passengers were thrown from their seats and fell back down.

Turbulence is fairly routine while flying, and while cases of significant turbulence are reportedly becoming more frequent, they are statistically infrequent.

Data suggests that there are approximately five thousand cases of severe or worse turbulence every year, out of a overall number of over 35 million aircraft departures that are conducted around the world.

Severe turbulence is defined as when the sudden jolts of a aircraft going through rough air masses generate greater than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - a strong enough force to throw you from your seat if you did not have on a safety belt.

As global warming modifies the conditions in the sky, researchers alert that flying could become more turbulent: shifts in temperature and shifting wind patterns in the jet stream level are expected to boost the occurrence and strength of dangerous in-flight bumps.