A Number of Injured as Turbulence Strikes A Delta Airlines Plane Arriving in Sydney, Australia

Multiple passengers and crew have been injured following a Delta jet from LA to Sydney, Australia was hit by rough air this past Friday.

The flight, numbered 41 "encountered brief turbulence" as it touched down at the Sydney airport, a company official told. A number of the onboard staff were injured.

Emergency medical services reported they evaluated five individuals, and transferred three of them to a medical facility with minor injuries that such as back pain and headaches. Those affected were between their 30s to 70s.

It is the latest incident of commercial jets being hit by severe turbulence, with researchers indicating that global warming is a key driver.

There were 245 passengers and fifteen staff members on the aircraft, the official said, adding that the plane touched down "without further incident" at the airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on Friday morning.

Paramedics reported they received a call just a mere three minutes ahead of the plane touched down, and ambulances were waiting on the tarmac.

The reasons turbulence is getting more common - and potentially more dangerous.

Last year, two dozen individuals sustained injuries when a separate Delta aircraft, travelling from Salt Lake City, Utah to Amsterdam, experienced "severe" rough air just 120 minutes into the lengthy trip, and was forced to make an unscheduled landing.

Earlier this year, passengers and crew on a Singapore Airlines jet experienced a frightening brief five-second of severe turbulence. One passenger lost their life and many were hurt, as unbelted passengers rose out of their seats and crashed back down.

Turbulence is not uncommon on aircraft journeys, and while cases of significant turbulence seem to be rising, they are statistically infrequent.

Research indicates that there are approximately thousands of instances of severe or worse turbulence each year, out of a sum of over 35 million journeys that are conducted globally.

Severe turbulence is described as when the up and down movements of a aircraft passing through unstable air exert in excess of 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - a strong enough force to propel you from your seat if you were not fastened by a restraint.

As climate change shifts atmospheric conditions, specialists caution that air travel could become bumpier: temperature changes and altered air currents in the higher altitudes are expected to heighten the occurrence and strength of severe turbulence.