Multiple Injured as Turbulence Strikes A Delta Airlines Aircraft Landing at Sydney, Australia

Several people have been injured after a Delta Airlines aircraft originating in Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia experienced significant turbulence this past Friday.

Flight DL41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it touched down at the Sydney airport, a representative for the carrier informed. A number of the onboard staff were injured.

Local paramedics said they treated five patients, and transported three of them to a medical facility with relatively minor issues that such as pain in the back and migraines. The patients' ages ranged from their thirties and seventies.

This marks the most recent case of aircraft encountering atmospheric disturbance, with researchers indicating that climate change is a major factor.

There were 245 passengers and fifteen staff members on the Airbus A350, the Delta spokesperson said, stating that the plane landed "safely and normally" at Sydney Airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday.

The NSW Ambulance Service indicated they received a call just a mere three minutes before the plane landed, and response teams were waiting on the tarmac.

Why plane turbulence is getting more common - and potentially more dangerous.

In the previous year, 25 people sustained injuries when another Delta jet, flying from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, experienced "significant" atmospheric disturbance just two hours into the transoceanic journey, and was forced to make an unscheduled landing.

Recently, travelers and staff on a Singapore Airlines flight endured a harrowing five seconds period of extreme instability. A traveler lost their life and many were hurt, as unbelted passengers rose out of their seats and fell back down.

Bumpy air is a common occurrence during flights, and while occurrences of strong or severe turbulence are reportedly becoming more frequent, they are still very rare.

Data suggests that there are around thousands of instances of severe-or-greater turbulence every year, out of a total of in excess of 35 million journeys that currently occur globally.

Intense turbulence is categorized as when the vertical motions of a aircraft going through disturbed air apply in excess of 1.5g-force on your body - sufficient force to propel you from your seat if you weren't wearing a seatbelt.

As climate change alters atmospheric conditions, researchers alert that commercial aviation could become more turbulent: temperature changes and altered air currents in the upper atmosphere are expected to heighten the regularity and severity of dangerous in-flight bumps.