Long moments of panic after seven people were left wounds and broken glass strewn everywhere during a flight Lufthansa started in the city of Austin, Texas and made its way to Frankfurt. He will never reach the German airport because he was forced to make an emergency landing at Dulles Airport in Washington after “severe turbulence” on board, according to a statement from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The tension on board
The Airbus A330 “landed safely” in Dulles and the seven people were immediately transported to local hospitals, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority told the Washington Post. An FAA insider said Flight 469 landed safely around 9:10 p.m. local time. Panic on board would have erupted as the plane flew at 35,000 feet over the state of Tennessee and rapidly lost altitude, more than 330 feet in a matter of seconds.
Lufthansa note
The German company then confirmed in a statement sent in the last few hours that flight LH469 en route from Austin to Frankfurt “encountered brief but severe turbulence approximately 90 minutes after take-off” and stressed that the crew “arrived in Washington unscheduled Dulles landed at the airport as a precaution.” The US newspaper collected the testimonies of some passengers, who said the plane went into “freefall” due to the turbulence while the crew began serving dinner so much that the food would have fallen to the ground and been spilled everywhere.”These were so-called clear air turbulence, which can occur without visible weather phenomena or prior warning,” reports CNN after hearing executives from the German company.
Someone sitting in the seat in front of the injured passenger said they saw blood spatter and the person was taken to hospital in a wheelchair upon landing. One passenger, Susan Zimmerman, from Austin and five months pregnant, told CNN that she had just finished eating and was about to go to the bathroom when turbulence hit the plane. “During dinner there was a sudden wind shear, the plane gained altitude, then we crashed 1,000 feet,” he said.
“It was like free falling from the top of a roller coaster for five seconds, plates and glasses had landed on the ceiling and my purse, which was on the floor, was flying to the right behind me,” the passenger added. People panicked and in the excitement phases some glass would even have been broken. An investigation has been launched by the FAA to shed light on the matter.