On March 1, a Lufthansa flight en route from Austin, USA to Frankfurt, Germany experienced severe turbulence.
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The turmoil began as the plane flew over Tennessee and made an emergency landing in Washington.
The seven injured were taken to nearby hospitals, but their lives are not feared.
Images show debris and passenger belongings strewn across the plane’s corridors, showing the force of the tremors felt inside the plane.
According to passengers interviewed by CNN, the turbulence began without warning.
Some thought the plane was in free fall.
“We were in the air for 45 minutes and they started serving dinner,” said passenger Janet Dilu. Suddenly, a flight attendant finds herself on the roof of the plane. There was no announcement of impending turmoil, not all of it.
The passengers panicked.
“It’s like we see in the movies, like the gravity is gone, she continues. Everyone was covered in food and we heard people crying and screaming.
Lufthansa attributed the incident to atmospheric turbulence, a type of shaking that occurs without a visual identifier to alert pilots.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States has launched an investigation into the incident to determine the circumstances under which such tremors may have occurred.
This is not the first such incident in recent months.
In December, 25 people were injured when a Hawaiian Airlines flight encountered turbulence en route to Honolulu.
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