A Number of Affected as Turbulence Impacts Delta Aircraft into Sydney, Australia

Several people sustained injuries after a Delta Airlines flight traveling from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia was hit by turbulence Friday morning.

The flight, numbered 41 "encountered brief turbulence" as it made its approach and landed at the Sydney airport, a company official informed. Several cabin crew members required medical attention.

The New South Wales Ambulance Service reported they assessed a total of five people, and transferred three to the hospital with relatively minor issues that such as back pain and headaches. The injured spanned from their 30s up to the 70s.

It is the latest incident of aircraft encountering severe turbulence, with aviation specialists saying that shifting climate patterns is a key driver.

There were nearly 250 travelers and 15 crew members on the aircraft, the representative added, adding that the plane touched down "safely and normally" at the airport at 06:48 local time on the day in question.

Paramedics said they received a call just only 180 seconds before the plane landed, and ambulances were ready and waiting at the airport.

Why plane turbulence is becoming more common - and more severe.

During the past year, 25 people sustained injuries when another Delta jet, flying from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, hit "severe" atmospheric disturbance just two hours into the long-haul flight, and diverted for an unscheduled landing.

Earlier this year, travelers and staff on a Singapore Airlines jet went through a terrifying brief five-second period of extreme instability. A traveler died and numerous people sustained injuries, as those without seatbelts rose out of their seats and fell back down.

Bumpy air is fairly routine on aircraft journeys, and while instances of rough conditions are reportedly becoming more frequent, they are still very rare.

Data suggests that there are approximately thousands of instances of severe or worse turbulence each year, out of a overall number of more than 35 million flights that are conducted around the world.

Intense turbulence is described as when the sudden jolts of a plane passing through rough air masses generate in excess of 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - sufficient force to propel you from your seat if you weren't wearing a safety belt.

As global warming shifts the conditions in the sky, specialists caution that air travel could become less smooth: warming trends and changing jet streams in the jet stream level are likely to increase the occurrence and strength of dangerous in-flight bumps.