A Number of Hurt as Turbulence Impacts Delta Aircraft Arriving in Sydney

Several people sustained injuries after a Delta aircraft from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia experienced rough air this past Friday.

Flight DL41 "encountered brief turbulence" as it made its approach and landed at the Sydney airport, a representative for the carrier told. A number of the onboard staff sustained injuries.

The New South Wales Ambulance Service reported they assessed a total of five people, and transferred a trio to the hospital with relatively minor issues that comprised spinal discomfort and headaches. Those affected spanned from their thirties and seventies.

The event represents the latest incident of commercial jets experiencing turbulence, with researchers saying that shifting climate patterns is a major factor.

There were nearly 250 travelers and fifteen staff members on the wide-body jet, the official noted, stating that the plane touched down "safely and normally" at Sydney Airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday morning.

Paramedics indicated they were alerted just three minutes prior to the plane touched down, and response teams were standing by on the runway.

The reasons turbulence is getting more common - and often stronger.

In the previous year, two dozen individuals were hurt when a separate Delta aircraft, on a route from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, Netherlands, experienced "severe" turbulence just 120 minutes into the transoceanic journey, and was forced to make an emergency landing.

Recently, travelers and staff on a Singapore Airlines flight went through a frightening short but intense of severe turbulence. A traveler passed away and dozens were injured, as individuals not fastened in lifted out of their seats and crashed back down.

Bumpy air is not uncommon on aircraft journeys, and while occurrences of strong or severe turbulence appear to be increasing, they are remained quite uncommon.

Research indicates that there are around 5,000 incidents of severe or worse turbulence annually, out of a overall number of in excess of 35 million journeys that now take off around the world.

Strong atmospheric disturbance is categorized as when the up and down movements of a jet experiencing unstable air apply greater than 1.5g-force on your body - enough 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 bumpier: temperature changes and altered air currents in the upper atmosphere are projected to increase the occurrence and strength of dangerous in-flight bumps.