Multiple Injured as Rough Air Hits Delta Aircraft Landing at Sydney

A number of individuals sustained injuries when a Delta flight traveling from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia experienced rough air this past Friday.

Flight DL41 "went through a short bout of rough air" as it landed at the Sydney airport, a company official stated. Four flight attendants required medical attention.

Emergency medical services stated they assessed a total of five people, and took three to a medical facility with relatively minor issues that included back pain and migraines. The patients' ages were between their 30s up to the 70s.

The event represents the most recent case of planes experiencing severe turbulence, with aviation specialists saying that global warming is a key driver.

The aircraft was carrying nearly 250 travelers and fifteen staff members on the aircraft, the Delta spokesperson said, adding that the plane arrived "safely" at the airport at 06:48 local time on Friday morning.

The NSW Ambulance Service said they received a call just a mere three minutes before the plane arrived, and emergency vehicles were waiting on the tarmac.

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

Last year, 25 people were injured when a separate Delta aircraft, travelling from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, Netherlands, hit "severe" turbulence just 120 minutes into the long-haul flight, and had to make an unscheduled landing.

Recently, passengers and crew on a Singapore Airlines jet endured a harrowing five seconds of severe turbulence. One passenger lost their life and many were hurt, as individuals not fastened in were thrown from their seats and were slammed back.

Bumpy air is fairly routine during flights, and while instances of strong or severe turbulence appear to be increasing, they are remained quite uncommon.

Estimates show that there are approximately thousands of instances of severe or worse turbulence annually, out of a overall number of over 35 million flights that are conducted around the world.

Severe turbulence is described as when the up and down movements of a aircraft experiencing rough air masses apply more than a significant G-force on your body - sufficient force to throw you from your seat if you weren't wearing a restraint.

As climate change alters the conditions in the sky, researchers alert that commercial aviation could become more turbulent: shifts in temperature and changing jet streams in the jet stream level are projected to increase the occurrence and strength of dangerous in-flight bumps.