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

A number of individuals have been injured after a Delta aircraft traveling from LA to Sydney, Australia encountered rough air on Friday morning.

Flight DL41 "went through a short bout of rough air" as it made its approach and landed at Sydney Airport, an airline spokesperson told. Four flight attendants required medical attention.

The New South Wales Ambulance Service stated they treated five patients, and transferred a trio to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries that included spinal discomfort and headaches. The patients' ages were between their thirties and seventies.

It is the latest incident of planes encountering severe turbulence, with researchers saying that climate change is a significant contributor.

The aircraft was carrying nearly 250 travelers and fifteen staff members on the wide-body jet, the Delta spokesperson noted, stating that the plane touched down "safely" at Sydney Airport at 06:48 local time on Friday.

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

Why plane turbulence is becoming increasingly prevalent - and potentially more dangerous.

In the previous year, 25 people were hurt when a Delta Airlines flight, on a route from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, Netherlands, encountered "considerable" turbulence just a couple of hours into the transoceanic journey, and diverted for an unscheduled landing.

Earlier this year, passengers and crew on a certain international flight endured a terrifying short but intense of severe turbulence. An individual passed away and many were hurt, as individuals not fastened in lifted out of their seats and crashed back down.

Turbulence is a common occurrence on aircraft journeys, and while occurrences of significant turbulence appear to be increasing, they are still very rare.

Estimates show that there are approximately five thousand cases of severe-or-greater turbulence every year, out of a sum of more than 35 million flights that are conducted worldwide.

Intense turbulence is described as when the up and down movements of a plane passing through unstable air apply in excess of a significant G-force on your body - a strong enough force to lift you out of your seat if you weren't wearing a safety belt.

As climate change modifies the conditions in the sky, experts warn that air travel could become less smooth: shifts in temperature and altered air currents in the jet stream level are likely to increase the regularity and severity of severe turbulence.