Multiple Affected as Turbulence Impacts A Delta Airlines Flight into Sydney, Australia

Several people sustained injuries after a Delta Airlines aircraft traveling from LA to Sydney, Australia experienced turbulence this past Friday.

Flight DL41 "went through a short bout of rough air" as it touched down at Sydney Airport, an airline spokesperson stated. Four flight attendants were injured.

Emergency medical services stated they treated five patients, and transferred three of them to the hospital with relatively minor issues that included back pain and migraines. The patients' ages were between their thirties and seventies.

The event represents the latest incident of aircraft encountering turbulence, with researchers saying that climate change is a key driver.

On board were 245 passengers and fifteen staff members on the Airbus A350, the representative added, clarifying that the plane landed "safely and normally" at Sydney Airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on the day in question.

Emergency responders indicated they received a call just three minutes prior to the plane arrived, and response teams were waiting on the tarmac.

Why in-flight bumpiness is getting more common - and often stronger.

During the past year, two dozen individuals were hurt when a separate Delta aircraft, on a route from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, Netherlands, experienced "considerable" turbulence just a couple of hours into the transoceanic journey, and was forced to make an unscheduled landing.

Earlier this year, those on board on a Singapore Airlines jet experienced a frightening brief five-second period of extreme instability. An individual passed away and many were hurt, as those without seatbelts were thrown from their seats and were slammed back.

Bumpy air is not uncommon during flights, and while occurrences of rough conditions are reportedly becoming more frequent, they are still very rare.

Data suggests that there are around five thousand cases of significant in-flight disturbance every year, out of a overall number of in excess of 35 million journeys that now take off worldwide.

Intense turbulence is defined as when the up and down movements of a aircraft experiencing rough air masses exert in excess of 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - sufficient force to throw you from your seat if you weren't wearing a seatbelt.

As climate change shifts atmospheric conditions, specialists caution that flying could become less smooth: shifts in temperature and changing jet streams in the upper atmosphere are projected to increase the regularity and severity of significant turbulence.