Several Injured as Turbulence Impacts A Delta Airlines Flight Landing at Sydney, Australia

Multiple passengers and crew were hurt following a Delta flight from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia experienced turbulence Friday morning.

The flight, numbered 41 "encountered brief turbulence" as it touched down at the Sydney airport, a representative for the carrier stated. Several cabin crew members required medical attention.

Emergency medical services reported they evaluated five patients, and took three of them to a medical facility with minor injuries that comprised spinal discomfort and headaches. The injured spanned from their 30s to 70s.

It is the most recent case of commercial jets experiencing severe turbulence, with aviation specialists saying that global warming is a major factor.

On board were 245 passengers and 15 crew members on the aircraft, the representative added, clarifying that the plane landed "without further incident" at Sydney Airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday.

The NSW Ambulance Service said they got a call just a mere three minutes before the plane landed, and ambulances were ready and waiting at the airport.

Why in-flight bumpiness is growing more common - and potentially more dangerous.

Last year, 25 people were injured when a Delta Airlines flight, on a route from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, Netherlands, experienced "significant" rough air just a couple of hours into the long-haul flight, and was forced to make an precautionary landing.

Earlier this year, those on board on a Singapore Airlines flight endured a terrifying short but intense period of extreme instability. A traveler died and numerous people sustained injuries, as unbelted passengers lifted out of their seats and crashed back down.

Turbulence is fairly routine on aircraft journeys, and while instances of significant turbulence appear to be increasing, they are still very rare.

Research indicates that there are an estimated thousands of instances of severe or worse turbulence each year, out of a overall number of more than 35 million journeys that now take off around the world.

Intense turbulence is categorized as when the vertical motions of a plane experiencing disturbed air exert in excess of 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - enough to propel you from your seat if you did not have on a restraint.

As global warming modifies atmospheric conditions, researchers alert that air travel could become bumpier: warming trends and changing jet streams in the higher altitudes are expected to increase the regularity and severity of dangerous in-flight bumps.