A Number of Hurt as In-Flight Disturbance Strikes Delta Plane Arriving in Sydney

A number of individuals have been injured when a Delta aircraft traveling from LA to Sydney was hit by rough air this past Friday.

Flight DL41 "went through a short bout of rough air" as it touched down at the Sydney airport, an airline spokesperson told. Several cabin crew members required medical attention.

Emergency medical services said they assessed a total of five people, and transported three to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries that such as pain in the back and migraines. Those affected spanned from their 30s up to the 70s.

It is the most recent case of aircraft being hit by severe turbulence, with aviation specialists indicating that climate change is a major factor.

The aircraft was carrying nearly 250 travelers and a crew of 15 on the aircraft, the official noted, clarifying that the plane touched down "safely" at Sydney Airport at 06:48 local time on Friday morning.

Emergency responders reported they received a call just a mere three minutes before the plane touched down, and ambulances were waiting on the tarmac.

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

In the previous year, two dozen individuals sustained injuries when a Delta Airlines flight, on a route from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, experienced "severe" rough air just 120 minutes into the long-haul flight, and had to make an unscheduled landing.

Recently, passengers and crew on a Singapore Airlines jet experienced a frightening brief five-second period of extreme instability. An individual died and many were hurt, as individuals not fastened in lifted out of their seats and crashed back down.

Turbulence is fairly routine on aircraft journeys, and while occurrences of rough conditions appear to be increasing, they are still very rare.

Estimates show that there are around five thousand cases of severe-or-greater turbulence each year, out of a overall number of over 35 million journeys that now take off around the world.

Intense turbulence is categorized as when the sudden jolts of a plane going through unstable air apply more than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - a strong enough force to lift you out of your seat if you did not have on a seatbelt.

As climate change alters the conditions in the sky, experts warn that air travel could become bumpier: temperature changes and changing jet streams in the upper atmosphere are projected to boost the occurrence and strength of significant turbulence.