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

A number of individuals sustained injuries following a Delta Airlines flight originating in Los Angeles to Sydney was hit by rough air Friday morning.

Flight DL41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it landed at Sydney Airport, an airline spokesperson stated. Four flight attendants sustained injuries.

Emergency medical services said they treated five individuals, and transported a trio to a medical facility with relatively minor issues that included spinal discomfort and head pain. The patients' ages ranged from their 30s up to the 70s.

It is the most recent case of commercial jets encountering atmospheric disturbance, with aviation specialists indicating that global warming is a major factor.

There were 245 people and 15 crew members on the Airbus A350, the Delta spokesperson noted, clarifying that the plane landed "safely and normally" at Sydney Airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on the day in question.

The NSW Ambulance Service said they received a call just three minutes before the plane landed, and emergency vehicles were ready and waiting at the airport.

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

In the previous year, 25 people were injured when another Delta jet, travelling from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, experienced "considerable" atmospheric disturbance just a couple of hours into the long-haul flight, and had to make an unscheduled landing.

Recently, travelers and staff on a Singapore Airlines jet went through a harrowing brief five-second of severe turbulence. One passenger passed away and numerous people sustained injuries, as individuals not fastened in were thrown from their seats and fell back down.

In-flight turbulence is a common occurrence during flights, and while occurrences of strong or severe turbulence appear to be increasing, they are still very rare.

Estimates show that there are approximately thousands of instances of significant in-flight disturbance each year, out of a sum of in excess of 35 million journeys that are conducted around the world.

Intense turbulence is defined as when the sudden jolts of a plane going through rough air masses apply greater than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - sufficient force to lift you out of your seat if you were not fastened by a safety belt.

As climate change modifies weather patterns, specialists caution that flying could become more turbulent: temperature changes and shifting wind patterns in the upper atmosphere are expected to heighten the regularity and severity of significant turbulence.