Several Injured as Turbulence Strikes Delta Aircraft Landing at Sydney, Australia

Several people were hurt when a Delta aircraft originating in Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia encountered significant turbulence on Friday morning.

Flight DL41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it made its approach and landed at Sydney Airport, an airline spokesperson stated. Several cabin crew members were injured.

Local paramedics stated they assessed five patients, and transferred three to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries that comprised back pain and head pain. The injured spanned from their 30s to 70s.

This marks the newest example of planes experiencing severe turbulence, with researchers indicating that climate change is a major factor.

On board were 245 people and a crew of 15 on the aircraft, the representative added, stating that the plane landed "safely" at Sydney Airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on Friday morning.

Emergency responders said they received a call just three minutes prior to the plane touched down, and response teams were standing by on the runway.

Why plane turbulence is growing more common - and more severe.

In the previous year, 25 people sustained injuries when a Delta Airlines flight, on a route from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, Netherlands, encountered "severe" turbulence just two hours into the long-haul flight, and diverted for an emergency landing.

Recently, those on board on a Singapore Airlines flight went through a terrifying five seconds period of extreme instability. A traveler died and numerous people sustained injuries, as unbelted passengers were thrown from their seats and crashed back down.

In-flight turbulence is a common occurrence during flights, and while cases of significant turbulence are reportedly becoming more frequent, they are still very rare.

Data suggests that there are an estimated five thousand cases of severe or worse turbulence every year, out of a overall number of over 35 million journeys that currently occur globally.

Strong atmospheric disturbance is defined as when the up and down movements of a aircraft passing through rough air masses generate in excess of 1.5g-force on your body - a strong enough force to propel you from your seat if you were not fastened by a seatbelt.

As climate change modifies the conditions in the sky, researchers alert that commercial aviation could become bumpier: temperature changes and altered air currents in the jet stream level are likely to boost the occurrence and strength of severe turbulence.