A Number of Injured as In-Flight Disturbance Hits A Delta Airlines Flight Landing at Sydney, Australia

A number of individuals sustained injuries when a Delta jet from Los Angeles to Sydney was hit by significant turbulence on Friday morning.

Flight DL41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it made its approach and landed at the Sydney airport, an airline spokesperson told. Several cabin crew members sustained injuries.

Local paramedics stated they assessed five patients, and took three to the hospital with minor injuries that included spinal discomfort and migraines. The patients' ages spanned from their thirties and seventies.

This marks the latest incident of commercial jets encountering severe turbulence, with aviation specialists indicating that global warming is a major factor.

There were nearly 250 travelers and a crew of 15 on the Airbus A350, the Delta spokesperson said, clarifying that the plane landed "safely and normally" at Sydney Airport at 06:48 local time on Friday morning.

Emergency responders indicated they were alerted just a mere three minutes ahead of the plane arrived, and emergency vehicles were standing by on the runway.

The reasons turbulence is getting more frequent - and potentially more dangerous.

Last year, two dozen individuals were injured when a Delta Airlines flight, flying from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, Netherlands, experienced "severe" atmospheric disturbance just a couple of hours into the long-haul flight, and had to make an emergency landing.

Earlier this year, passengers and crew on a Singapore Airlines jet went through a frightening five seconds period of extreme instability. A traveler died and many were hurt, as unbelted passengers lifted out of their seats and fell back down.

In-flight turbulence is a common occurrence on aircraft journeys, and while occurrences of rough conditions appear to be increasing, they are remained quite uncommon.

Estimates show that there are approximately thousands of instances of severe-or-greater turbulence every year, out of a sum of over 35 million aircraft departures that currently occur worldwide.

Strong atmospheric disturbance is defined as when the up and down movements of a aircraft experiencing unstable air generate more than 1.5g-force on your body - sufficient force to throw you from your seat if you were not fastened by a restraint.

As a changing climate shifts weather patterns, experts warn that air travel could become more turbulent: shifts in temperature and changing jet streams in the higher altitudes are projected to heighten the occurrence and strength of dangerous in-flight bumps.