Five people were hurt on an American Airlines flight on Sunday after a patch of what the airline called turbulence shook the Airbus A321.
American Airlines Flight 1286 was heading for Raleigh-Durham airport from Miami when it hit “unexpected turbulence,” an American Airlines representative said, according to Fox News.
The representative said the seat belt sign was on at the time.
After the plane landed at about 10:50 p.m. at North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham International Airport, “the crew reported possible injuries to cabin crew and passengers due to turbulence,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement, adding that it was investigating the incident.
First responders met the plane and took three flight attendants and two passengers to a local hospital. Some passengers with bumps and bruises refused medical attention.
Passenger Lee Francis said chaos erupted, according to WNCN-TV.
“Everybody’s hollering, I’ve got my wife’s hand, she’s got my kids, you know, like we’re doing the whole thing. Cups are going everywhere, ice goes everywhere,” he said.
Francis praised the flight attendants for keeping their cool.
“It was wild because while they were there, I mean they’re injured, those carts are super heavy, they’re injured and yet they were so awesome, because they’re literally telling people like, stay in your seat, don’t help us, we don’t know what’s going on, keep your seatbelt on,” he said.
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A woman who spoke to WRAL-TV, but did not give her name, said she was jolted from being half-asleep.
“It was like being on the top of a roller coaster and going down,” she said. “It sounded like we hit something and then we just dropped in the air.”
Passenger Cameron Autry said he was in the restroom when the plane lurched.
“I think I might have been in the absolutely worst place in the entire airplane when it happened,” he said. “I am just holding onto the faucet and the edge of the sink, like just whatever I could find.”
Other passengers said there was fear in the air.
“I would say it was absolutely horrific. People thought that they were going to lose their lives,” one woman said.
“It was just a very, very, very scary experience,” a passenger who called the incident “pure chaos” said. “I think everybody was very shaken up.”
One passenger criticized the response.
“It took way too long for the captain to address what happened,” a woman said. “There were injured people aboard the aircraft. He should have stopped at the closest airport instead of flying another hour and 10 minutes were two people were in need of immediate medical attention.”
One passenger doubted simple turbulence was to blame.
“Turbulence doesn’t do this. I mean, I fly all the time. I’ve never experienced something like this,” she said. “We’re all looking at each other like, no, it was definitely not turbulence. We definitely saw lightning.”
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