A Number of Affected as In-Flight Disturbance Strikes Delta Flight Landing at Sydney, Australia

Multiple passengers and crew were hurt after a Delta Airlines aircraft traveling from LA to Sydney was hit by turbulence this past Friday.

The flight, numbered 41 "encountered brief turbulence" as it landed at Sydney Airport, a representative for the carrier informed. Several cabin crew members sustained injuries.

Emergency medical services said they assessed five patients, and took three to hospital with relatively minor issues that comprised back pain and migraines. The injured were between their 30s up to the 70s.

The event represents the latest incident of aircraft being hit by severe turbulence, with experts saying that climate change is a significant contributor.

There were nearly 250 travelers and a crew of 15 on the aircraft, the representative added, adding that the plane landed "without further incident" at Sydney Airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday morning.

The NSW Ambulance Service said they were alerted just three minutes ahead of the plane touched down, and emergency vehicles were ready and waiting at the airport.

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

During the past year, 25 people were injured when another Delta jet, travelling from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, Netherlands, experienced "severe" atmospheric disturbance just a couple of hours into the long-haul flight, and diverted for an precautionary landing.

Earlier this year, passengers and crew on a Singapore Airlines flight experienced a terrifying brief five-second period of extreme instability. An individual lost their life and numerous people sustained injuries, as individuals not fastened in rose out of their seats and fell back down.

Turbulence is not uncommon on aircraft journeys, and while instances of strong or severe turbulence are reportedly becoming more frequent, they are still very rare.

Research indicates that there are an estimated 5,000 incidents of severe-or-greater turbulence each year, out of a sum of over 35 million journeys that now take off around the world.

Strong atmospheric disturbance is described as when the up and down movements of a aircraft experiencing rough air masses exert more than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - enough to lift you out of your seat if you did not have on a safety belt.

As climate change shifts weather patterns, researchers alert that air travel could become bumpier: warming trends and changing jet streams in the upper atmosphere are projected to increase the regularity and severity of dangerous in-flight bumps.