A Number of Injured as In-Flight Disturbance Strikes Delta Plane into Sydney, Australia

Multiple passengers and crew sustained injuries when a Delta Airlines flight originating in LA to Sydney encountered turbulence this past Friday.

Flight DL41 "encountered brief turbulence" as it made its approach and landed at the Sydney airport, an airline spokesperson informed. Four flight attendants were injured.

Emergency medical services said they assessed a total of five people, and transferred three of them to the hospital with minor injuries that such as back pain and headaches. The injured spanned from their thirties and seventies.

This marks the newest example of commercial jets encountering turbulence, with researchers indicating that climate change is a key driver.

On board were 245 passengers and fifteen staff members on the wide-body jet, the official noted, adding that the plane arrived "without further incident" at the airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on Friday.

The NSW Ambulance Service indicated they were alerted just a mere three minutes ahead of the plane landed, and emergency vehicles were ready and waiting at the airport.

Why plane turbulence is growing more frequent - and potentially more dangerous.

In the previous year, 25 people were injured when another Delta jet, on a route from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, Netherlands, encountered "considerable" atmospheric disturbance just two hours into the long-haul flight, and was forced to make an emergency landing.

Earlier this year, travelers and staff on a Singapore Airlines flight experienced a frightening five seconds of severe turbulence. One passenger lost their life and dozens were injured, as those without seatbelts were thrown from their seats and crashed back down.

Turbulence is a common occurrence during flights, and while instances of significant turbulence seem to be rising, they are remained quite uncommon.

Research indicates that there are around thousands of instances of significant in-flight disturbance each year, out of a overall number of in excess of 35 million aircraft departures that are conducted around the world.

Strong atmospheric disturbance is described as when the up and down movements of a plane passing through disturbed air generate in excess of 1.5g-force on your body - enough to throw you from your seat if you weren't wearing a seatbelt.

As climate change shifts atmospheric conditions, researchers alert that commercial aviation could become more turbulent: warming trends and altered air currents in the jet stream level are projected to heighten the regularity and severity of significant turbulence.