A Number of Affected as Rough Air Strikes Delta Flight Arriving in Sydney, Australia

A number of individuals were hurt when a Delta Airlines jet from LA to Sydney, Australia was hit by significant turbulence this past Friday.

Flight DL41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it landed at the Sydney airport, an airline spokesperson told. Four flight attendants required medical attention.

The New South Wales Ambulance Service said they assessed a total of five people, and transported a trio to a medical facility with non-life-threatening injuries that comprised pain in the back and headaches. The patients' ages ranged from their 30s up to the 70s.

This marks the latest incident of commercial jets being hit by severe turbulence, with experts saying that shifting climate patterns is a significant contributor.

The aircraft was carrying 245 people and a crew of 15 on the wide-body jet, the representative added, adding that the plane landed "safely and normally" at Sydney Airport at 6:48 a.m. local time on Friday.

Paramedics said they received a call just a mere three minutes prior to the plane touched down, and response teams were standing by on the runway.

The reasons turbulence is getting increasingly prevalent - and often stronger.

During the past year, two dozen individuals were injured when another Delta jet, flying from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, experienced "significant" atmospheric disturbance just 120 minutes into the long-haul flight, and diverted for an unscheduled landing.

Earlier this year, passengers and crew on a Singapore Airlines jet endured a harrowing five seconds bout of severe turbulence. An individual passed away and numerous people sustained injuries, as individuals not fastened in lifted out of their seats and fell back down.

Bumpy air is not uncommon while flying, and while cases of significant turbulence are reportedly becoming more frequent, they are remained quite uncommon.

Estimates show that there are around thousands of instances of severe-or-greater turbulence every year, out of a sum of in excess of 35 million journeys that currently occur worldwide.

Intense turbulence is categorized as when the vertical motions of a jet going through disturbed air exert greater than a significant G-force on your body - enough to lift you out of your seat if you weren't wearing a seatbelt.

As climate change shifts weather patterns, researchers alert that flying could become less smooth: temperature changes and shifting wind patterns in the jet stream level are likely to boost the frequency and intensity of significant turbulence.