Several Hurt as Rough Air Hits A Delta Airlines Flight Arriving in Sydney

Multiple passengers and crew have been injured after a Delta Airlines aircraft from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia was hit by rough air this past Friday.

Delta Flight 41 "encountered brief turbulence" as it made its approach and landed at the Sydney airport, an airline spokesperson told. Four flight attendants required medical attention.

Local paramedics reported they evaluated five patients, and took three of them to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries that included pain in the back and headaches. The patients' ages spanned from their thirties and seventies.

It is the most recent case of aircraft encountering turbulence, with experts indicating that global warming is a key driver.

On board were 245 people and 15 crew members on the Airbus A350, the official added, stating that the plane landed "safely and normally" at the airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on Friday.

Emergency responders reported they were alerted just only 180 seconds ahead of the plane landed, and emergency vehicles were waiting on the tarmac.

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

During the past year, two dozen individuals sustained injuries when another Delta jet, travelling from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, hit "considerable" turbulence just a couple of hours into the long-haul flight, and had to make an unscheduled landing.

Recently, passengers and crew on a Singapore Airlines flight went through a harrowing brief five-second of severe turbulence. One passenger lost their life and numerous people sustained injuries, as unbelted passengers were thrown from their seats and were slammed back.

Bumpy air is a common occurrence during flights, and while cases of strong or severe turbulence appear to be increasing, they are statistically infrequent.

Data suggests that there are around five thousand cases of significant in-flight disturbance every year, out of a overall number of more than 35 million journeys that currently occur worldwide.

Intense turbulence is described as when the sudden jolts of a plane passing through rough air masses generate greater than a significant G-force on your body - a strong enough force to lift you out of your seat if you did not have on a seatbelt.

As a changing climate alters atmospheric conditions, researchers alert that flying could become more turbulent: temperature changes and shifting wind patterns in the jet stream level are expected to heighten the occurrence and strength of dangerous in-flight bumps.