A Number of Injured as In-Flight Disturbance Impacts Delta Aircraft Arriving in Sydney, Australia

A number of individuals sustained injuries when a Delta flight originating in Los Angeles to Sydney encountered turbulence on Friday morning.

Flight DL41 "went through a short bout of rough air" as it made its approach and landed at the Sydney airport, an airline spokesperson stated. Four flight attendants sustained injuries.

The New South Wales Ambulance Service stated they treated five patients, and transferred three to the hospital with relatively minor issues that included spinal discomfort and migraines. The patients' ages ranged from their 30s to 70s.

The event represents the most recent case of planes experiencing atmospheric disturbance, with researchers saying that climate change is a significant contributor.

On board were 245 people and fifteen staff members on the aircraft, the representative said, adding that the plane touched down "safely" at the airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on the day in question.

Paramedics said they got a call just only 180 seconds prior to the plane touched down, and response teams were ready and waiting at the airport.

Why plane turbulence is becoming more frequent - and potentially more dangerous.

In the previous year, 25 people were hurt when another Delta jet, on a route from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, Netherlands, encountered "considerable" atmospheric disturbance just two hours into the long-haul flight, and had to make an precautionary landing.

Recently, travelers and staff on a certain international flight went through a frightening five seconds bout of severe turbulence. One passenger died and numerous people sustained injuries, as unbelted passengers were thrown from their seats and fell back down.

Bumpy air is fairly routine during flights, and while occurrences 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-greater turbulence annually, out of a total of in excess of 35 million journeys that now take off around the world.

Strong atmospheric disturbance is defined as when the up and down movements of a plane experiencing unstable air generate more than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - enough to lift you out of your seat if you did not have on a safety belt.

As a changing climate shifts the conditions in the sky, researchers alert that commercial aviation could become bumpier: shifts in temperature and altered air currents in the jet stream level are projected to increase the occurrence and strength of significant turbulence.