Multiple Affected as Rough Air Hits Delta Plane Arriving in Sydney, Australia

Several people were hurt following a Delta flight traveling from LA to Sydney experienced turbulence on Friday morning.

The flight, numbered 41 "went through a short bout of rough air" as it made its approach and landed at the Sydney airport, an airline spokesperson stated. Several cabin crew members required medical attention.

Emergency medical services reported they evaluated five individuals, and took a trio to a medical facility with relatively minor issues that comprised pain in the back and migraines. The patients' ages spanned from their thirties and seventies.

This marks the most recent case of planes encountering severe turbulence, with experts indicating that global warming is a key driver.

There were 245 passengers and 15 crew members on the aircraft, the representative said, clarifying that the plane arrived "safely and normally" at the airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on the day in question.

Emergency responders said they were alerted just three minutes before the plane landed, and ambulances were waiting on the tarmac.

The reasons turbulence is becoming more frequent - and potentially more dangerous.

In the previous year, 25 people were hurt when a Delta Airlines flight, flying from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, Netherlands, hit "significant" rough air just 120 minutes into the long-haul flight, and had to make an precautionary landing.

Earlier this year, passengers and crew on a certain international flight experienced a terrifying short but intense of severe turbulence. One passenger lost their life and dozens were injured, as those without seatbelts rose out of their seats and fell back down.

Bumpy air is fairly routine on aircraft journeys, and while instances of rough conditions appear to be increasing, they are statistically infrequent.

Research indicates that there are around 5,000 incidents of severe or worse turbulence every year, out of a overall number of in excess of 35 million aircraft departures that are conducted around the world.

Intense turbulence is defined as when the up and down movements of a aircraft experiencing unstable air exert in excess of a significant G-force on your body - a strong enough force to propel you from your seat if you did not have on a seatbelt.

As a changing climate shifts atmospheric conditions, researchers alert that commercial aviation could become less smooth: shifts in temperature and changing jet streams in the higher altitudes are likely to increase the frequency and intensity of dangerous in-flight bumps.