Several Affected as Rough Air Strikes A Delta Airlines Aircraft Landing at Sydney, Australia

A number of individuals were hurt following a Delta jet originating in Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia encountered significant turbulence Friday morning.

Delta Flight 41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it made its approach and landed at the Sydney airport, a company official informed. Four flight attendants sustained injuries.

Emergency medical services stated they treated five patients, and transported three of them to a medical facility with non-life-threatening injuries that included pain in the back and head pain. The patients' ages spanned from their 30s to 70s.

It is the most recent case of commercial jets being hit by severe turbulence, with aviation specialists indicating that global warming is a significant contributor.

There were 245 passengers and a crew of 15 on the wide-body jet, the representative noted, clarifying that the plane arrived "without further incident" at the airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday morning.

Emergency responders said they got a call just a mere three minutes prior to the plane arrived, and response teams were standing by on the runway.

Why plane turbulence is becoming more common - and often stronger.

In the previous year, two dozen individuals sustained injuries when another Delta jet, on a route from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, hit "significant" turbulence just two hours into the long-haul flight, and had to make an unscheduled landing.

Recently, those on board on a Singapore Airlines jet endured a frightening short but intense period of extreme instability. A traveler passed away and dozens were injured, as individuals not fastened in were thrown from their seats and were slammed back.

In-flight turbulence is fairly routine during flights, and while instances of significant turbulence seem to be rising, they are statistically infrequent.

Data suggests that there are approximately five thousand cases of significant in-flight disturbance annually, out of a total of in excess of 35 million journeys that now take off worldwide.

Severe turbulence is defined as when the sudden jolts of a jet experiencing rough air masses exert greater than a significant G-force on your body - enough to throw you from your seat if you did not have on a safety belt.

As climate change shifts atmospheric conditions, researchers alert that air travel could become more turbulent: temperature changes and shifting wind patterns in the jet stream level are expected to increase the frequency and intensity of dangerous in-flight bumps.