Several Affected as Turbulence Strikes Delta Aircraft into Sydney

Multiple passengers and crew have been injured after a Delta jet originating in Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia experienced turbulence this past Friday.

The flight, numbered 41 "encountered brief turbulence" as it touched down at Sydney Airport, a representative for the carrier informed. Several cabin crew members sustained injuries.

The New South Wales Ambulance Service said they evaluated five individuals, and transferred three of them to a medical facility with relatively minor issues that such as pain in the back and migraines. The patients' ages were between their 30s up to the 70s.

It is the latest incident of aircraft encountering severe turbulence, with researchers saying that global warming is a key driver.

There were 245 passengers and 15 crew members on the aircraft, the representative added, adding that the plane landed "without further incident" at Sydney Airport at 06:48 local time on the day in question.

Emergency responders indicated they got a call just only 180 seconds prior to the plane touched down, and ambulances were waiting on the tarmac.

The reasons turbulence is growing more frequent - and often stronger.

During the past year, 25 people sustained injuries when another Delta jet, on a route from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, experienced "considerable" atmospheric disturbance just a couple of hours into the long-haul flight, and diverted for an unscheduled landing.

Recently, travelers and staff on a Singapore Airlines jet endured a harrowing brief five-second of severe turbulence. A traveler passed away and numerous people sustained injuries, as unbelted passengers were thrown from their seats and crashed back down.

Bumpy air is fairly routine while flying, and while instances of strong or severe turbulence seem to be rising, they are still very rare.

Data suggests that there are approximately thousands of instances of severe or worse turbulence every year, out of a overall number of in excess of 35 million flights that are conducted worldwide.

Intense turbulence is described as when the sudden jolts of a plane passing through unstable air generate in excess of 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - sufficient force to throw you from your seat if you were not fastened by a seatbelt.

As global warming modifies the conditions in the sky, researchers alert that commercial aviation could become bumpier: temperature changes and changing jet streams in the jet stream level are projected to increase the frequency and intensity of dangerous in-flight bumps.