Several Injured as Turbulence Hits A Delta Airlines Plane Landing at Sydney, Australia

Multiple passengers and crew have been injured when a Delta jet traveling from LA to Sydney was hit by turbulence on Friday morning.

Delta Flight 41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it touched down at the Sydney airport, a representative for the carrier told. Four flight attendants required medical attention.

Emergency medical services reported they treated a total of five people, and transported three to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries that comprised back pain and head pain. The patients' ages were between their 30s to 70s.

This marks the latest incident of commercial jets experiencing turbulence, with aviation specialists saying that global warming is a significant contributor.

There were 245 passengers and a crew of 15 on the Airbus A350, the representative said, stating that the plane landed "safely and normally" at the airport at 06:48 local time on Friday.

Paramedics said they got a call just a mere three minutes ahead of the plane arrived, and ambulances were standing by on the runway.

The reasons turbulence is getting more frequent - and often stronger.

In the previous year, twenty-five passengers and crew were injured when another Delta jet, flying from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, hit "significant" turbulence just 120 minutes into the lengthy trip, and was forced to make an unscheduled landing.

Recently, those on board on a Singapore Airlines jet endured a harrowing five seconds period of extreme instability. A traveler passed away and many were hurt, as those without seatbelts lifted out of their seats and fell back down.

Turbulence is not uncommon while flying, and while occurrences of significant turbulence seem to be rising, they are statistically infrequent.

Research indicates that there are an estimated 5,000 incidents of severe or worse turbulence each year, out of a sum of more than 35 million aircraft departures that currently occur around the world.

Intense turbulence is defined as when the vertical motions of a aircraft going through disturbed air exert more than a significant G-force on your body - enough to throw you from your seat if you were not fastened by a restraint.

As global warming modifies atmospheric conditions, specialists caution that flying could become less smooth: temperature changes and altered air currents in the jet stream level are expected to heighten the frequency and intensity of significant turbulence.