A Number of Hurt as Turbulence Strikes Delta Flight Landing at Sydney

Several people have been injured after a Delta aircraft from Los Angeles to Sydney experienced turbulence Friday morning.

Flight DL41 "went through a short bout of rough air" as it made its approach and landed at the Sydney airport, a company official informed. A number of the onboard staff sustained injuries.

The New South Wales Ambulance Service said they treated five individuals, and transferred three to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries that included back pain and head pain. The injured were between their 30s up to the 70s.

It is the newest example of commercial jets encountering turbulence, with experts pointing out that shifting climate patterns is a major factor.

On board were 245 people and fifteen staff members on the wide-body jet, the Delta spokesperson added, clarifying that the plane touched down "without further incident" at Sydney Airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on Friday morning.

Paramedics reported they got a call just a mere three minutes before the plane landed, and response teams were standing by on the runway.

Why in-flight bumpiness is becoming more frequent - and often stronger.

In the previous year, twenty-five passengers and crew sustained injuries when another Delta jet, travelling from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, encountered "considerable" atmospheric disturbance just two hours into the transoceanic journey, and was forced to make an emergency landing.

Recently, passengers and crew on a Singapore Airlines jet went through a terrifying brief five-second of severe turbulence. A traveler lost their life and numerous people sustained injuries, as unbelted passengers lifted out of their seats and fell back down.

Bumpy air is not uncommon during flights, and while instances of strong or severe turbulence seem to be rising, they are still very rare.

Research indicates that there are an estimated five thousand cases of significant in-flight disturbance every year, out of a overall number of in excess of 35 million journeys that currently occur worldwide.

Severe turbulence is defined as when the vertical motions of a plane passing through rough air masses generate in excess of 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - a strong enough force to propel you from your seat if you were not fastened by a safety belt.

As climate change modifies the conditions in the sky, specialists caution that air travel could become more turbulent: shifts in temperature and changing jet streams in the jet stream level are projected to boost the regularity and severity of dangerous in-flight bumps.