Multiple Hurt as In-Flight Disturbance Hits Delta Aircraft Landing at Sydney, Australia

A number of individuals were hurt when a Delta Airlines jet traveling from LA to Sydney, Australia encountered significant turbulence on Friday morning.

Flight DL41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it made its approach and landed at Sydney Airport, a company official told. Several cabin crew members sustained injuries.

Emergency medical services said they treated a total of five people, and transported three of them to hospital with minor injuries that included back pain and head pain. The patients' ages were between their 30s to 70s.

The event represents the latest incident of planes being hit by turbulence, with experts saying that global warming is a major factor.

On board were nearly 250 travelers and a crew of 15 on the wide-body jet, the representative noted, stating that the plane arrived "safely" at the airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on Friday morning.

Emergency responders said they were alerted just three minutes before the plane landed, and emergency vehicles were standing by on the runway.

Why in-flight bumpiness is growing increasingly prevalent - and potentially more dangerous.

During the past year, two dozen individuals were injured when a Delta Airlines flight, flying from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, encountered "severe" turbulence just a couple of hours into the lengthy trip, and diverted for an emergency landing.

Recently, travelers and staff on a Singapore Airlines flight endured a terrifying short but intense of severe turbulence. An individual lost their life and many were hurt, as unbelted passengers were thrown from their seats and fell back down.

Bumpy air is fairly routine on aircraft journeys, and while occurrences of strong or severe turbulence seem to be rising, they are still very rare.

Data suggests that there are an estimated thousands of instances of severe or worse turbulence every year, out of a overall number of more than 35 million aircraft departures that are conducted around the world.

Intense turbulence is described as when the vertical motions of a jet going through disturbed air exert more than a significant G-force on your body - a strong enough force to propel you from your seat if you were not fastened by a safety belt.

As a changing climate alters the conditions in the sky, experts warn that air travel could become less smooth: warming trends and altered air currents in the higher altitudes are projected to increase the frequency and intensity of dangerous in-flight bumps.