A Number of Affected as Rough Air Strikes Delta Plane Arriving in Sydney, Australia

A number of individuals have been injured after a Delta Airlines jet from LA to Sydney, Australia was hit by rough air on Friday morning.

Flight DL41 "encountered brief turbulence" as it made its approach and landed at the Sydney airport, a representative for the carrier stated. Several cabin crew members sustained injuries.

Emergency medical services said they treated five patients, and took a trio to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries that included pain in the back and head pain. The injured spanned from their thirties and seventies.

It is the most recent case of planes encountering severe turbulence, with experts indicating that climate change is a significant contributor.

On board were nearly 250 travelers and a crew of 15 on the Airbus A350, the representative added, adding that the plane landed "safely and normally" at the airport at 06:48 local time on Friday morning.

Paramedics indicated they were alerted just three minutes before the plane landed, and emergency vehicles were standing by on the runway.

Why plane turbulence is getting increasingly prevalent - and potentially more dangerous.

Last year, 25 people sustained injuries when another Delta jet, on a route from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, encountered "severe" atmospheric disturbance just two hours into the long-haul flight, and diverted for an emergency landing.

Earlier this year, travelers and staff on a certain international flight experienced a frightening brief five-second period of extreme instability. A traveler passed away and dozens were injured, as individuals not fastened in were thrown from their seats and fell back down.

In-flight turbulence is not uncommon during flights, and while cases of rough conditions seem to be rising, they are statistically infrequent.

Estimates show that there are approximately five thousand cases of significant in-flight disturbance every year, out of a overall number of more than 35 million journeys that now take off around the world.

Severe turbulence is described as when the vertical motions of a jet passing through rough air masses exert in excess of a significant G-force on your body - enough to propel you from your seat if you did not have on a seatbelt.

As global warming shifts weather patterns, researchers alert that commercial aviation could become less smooth: shifts in temperature and altered air currents in the higher altitudes are expected to increase the regularity and severity of dangerous in-flight bumps.