Several Injured as Turbulence Impacts A Delta Airlines Plane Arriving in Sydney, Australia

Several people sustained injuries after a Delta jet traveling from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia encountered rough air on Friday morning.

Flight DL41 "encountered brief turbulence" as it landed at Sydney Airport, a company official told. Four flight attendants sustained injuries.

Local paramedics reported they evaluated a total of five people, and transported three of them to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries that comprised back pain and headaches. Those affected ranged from their 30s up to the 70s.

It is the latest incident of planes being hit by atmospheric disturbance, with aviation specialists saying that global warming is a major factor.

On board were nearly 250 travelers and 15 crew members on the aircraft, the official said, clarifying that the plane arrived "without further incident" at the airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday.

Paramedics said they were alerted just three minutes ahead of the plane arrived, and emergency vehicles were waiting on the tarmac.

Why plane turbulence is getting more frequent - and more severe.

During the past year, 25 people were injured when another Delta jet, on a route from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, Netherlands, hit "significant" atmospheric disturbance just two hours into the lengthy trip, and diverted for an unscheduled landing.

Recently, travelers and staff on a Singapore Airlines jet went through a harrowing short but intense bout of severe turbulence. An individual died and dozens were injured, as those without seatbelts lifted out of their seats and were slammed back.

In-flight turbulence is fairly routine during flights, and while cases of rough conditions are reportedly becoming more frequent, they are statistically infrequent.

Data suggests that there are approximately five thousand cases of severe-or-greater turbulence each year, out of a sum of over 35 million flights that currently occur around the world.

Strong atmospheric disturbance is categorized as when the up and down movements of a aircraft going through rough air masses exert more than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - sufficient force to throw you from your seat if you were not fastened by a seatbelt.

As a changing climate shifts weather patterns, specialists caution that commercial aviation could become bumpier: shifts in temperature and changing jet streams in the jet stream level are expected to heighten the frequency and intensity of dangerous in-flight bumps.