Several Affected as Turbulence Hits A Delta Airlines Flight into Sydney, Australia

Several people were hurt following a Delta Airlines jet traveling from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia was hit by rough air on Friday morning.

Flight DL41 "went through a short bout of rough air" as it made its approach and landed at the Sydney airport, a representative for the carrier stated. A number of the onboard staff sustained injuries.

Local paramedics said they evaluated a total of five people, and took three to a medical facility with non-life-threatening injuries that such as pain in the back and migraines. The injured were between their 30s to 70s.

It is the most recent case of aircraft experiencing turbulence, with aviation specialists saying that shifting climate patterns is a key driver.

The aircraft was carrying 245 people and a crew of 15 on the aircraft, the official noted, stating that the plane landed "safely" at Sydney Airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday.

Emergency responders indicated they got a call just only 180 seconds ahead of the plane arrived, and emergency vehicles were waiting on the tarmac.

The reasons turbulence is becoming increasingly prevalent - and more severe.

During the past year, two dozen individuals were injured when a Delta Airlines flight, on a route from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, Netherlands, encountered "significant" turbulence just a couple of hours into the transoceanic journey, and had to make an emergency landing.

Recently, passengers and crew on a Singapore Airlines flight endured a harrowing short but intense bout of severe turbulence. A traveler passed away and numerous people sustained injuries, as unbelted passengers rose out of their seats and were slammed back.

Turbulence is fairly routine during flights, and while cases of rough conditions appear to be increasing, they are still very rare.

Estimates show that there are around thousands of instances of significant in-flight disturbance every year, out of a overall number of over 35 million journeys that are conducted globally.

Severe turbulence is defined as when the up and down movements of a plane going through unstable air exert greater than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - sufficient force to lift you out of your seat if you did not have on a restraint.

As climate change modifies the conditions in the sky, experts warn that air travel could become more turbulent: warming trends and changing jet streams in the upper atmosphere are projected to increase the occurrence and strength of severe turbulence.