A Number of Injured as Rough Air Strikes Delta Flight Landing at Sydney, Australia

A number of individuals sustained injuries when a Delta Airlines flight traveling from Los Angeles to Sydney experienced rough air Friday morning.

Flight DL41 "encountered brief turbulence" as it landed at Sydney Airport, a representative for the carrier told. A number of the onboard staff required medical attention.

Emergency medical services reported they evaluated five patients, and transported three of them to the hospital with relatively minor issues that such as pain in the back and head pain. The injured spanned from their 30s to 70s.

It is the most recent case of aircraft encountering turbulence, with researchers saying that shifting climate patterns is a key driver.

On board were 245 passengers and a crew of 15 on the aircraft, the representative noted, stating that the plane touched down "safely and normally" at the airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on the day in question.

The NSW Ambulance Service reported they received a call just only 180 seconds before the plane touched down, and emergency vehicles were standing by on the runway.

Why plane turbulence is growing increasingly prevalent - and potentially more dangerous.

Last year, twenty-five passengers and crew were injured when another Delta jet, travelling from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, encountered "severe" atmospheric disturbance just 120 minutes into the long-haul flight, and was forced to make an precautionary landing.

Earlier this year, passengers and crew on a Singapore Airlines jet went through a harrowing short but intense of severe turbulence. An individual passed away and many were hurt, as unbelted passengers rose out of their seats and fell back down.

In-flight turbulence is fairly routine on aircraft journeys, and while instances of rough conditions are reportedly becoming more frequent, they are remained quite uncommon.

Estimates show 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 now take off worldwide.

Severe turbulence is defined as when the vertical motions of a plane going through unstable air exert more than 1.5g-force on your body - sufficient force to propel you from your seat if you were not fastened by a restraint.

As global warming shifts weather patterns, experts warn that flying could become bumpier: temperature changes and shifting wind patterns in the higher altitudes are expected to boost the frequency and intensity of severe turbulence.