A United Airlines jet flying from Houston, Texas, to London Heathrow has made an emergency landing at Shannon airport in Ireland after “severe and unexpected turbulence” left 16 people injured.
Fourteen passengers and two crew members were taken to hospital. One flight attendant had a suspected broken arm and the other was bleeding from a cut head.
Gregory Giagnocavo, a telecoms investor and entrepreneur from Colorado in the US, was on the United Airlines flight when it suddenly plummeted four times.
“These were petrifying, enormous drops. A part of me didn’t know if we were going to make it. It was that bad,” he said. “I gripped the armrest and thought whether the next sound was going to be hitting the water.”
The pilots contacted Shannon air traffic control airport seeking permission to land due to a “medical situation on board”, according to the airline.
Ambulance crews were dispatched to the runway and picked up the injured passengers when the plane landed at 5.55am on Wednesday. The Boeing 767-300 jet had 207 passengers and 13 crew members on board and had been due to arrive at Heathrow at about 7am.
“The aircraft diverted to Shannon airport in Ireland where it was met by medical personnel,” said an airline spokesman. “United Airlines is providing care and support to customers and crew of flight UA880 … We wish these passengers and crew a quick recovery from their injuries.”
The injured were taken to University hospital Limerick. Eleven of the injured patients were discharged within four-and-a-half hours of the flight landing. Another plane was arranged to fly the final stretch of the journey to Heathrow just after midday while the jet remained in Shannon for investigators to assess.
Giagnocavo said many passengers were trying to sleep through the overnight flight and were strapped in. “It fell four times in a row,” he said. “It was a tremendous pull on the body. And on the third or fourth time babies starting waking up and crying, people were waking up disorientated.
“I thought: this is not turbulence. This is what feels like a life-threatening drop. This is not like any feeling I have had. This is immediately like an experience of being fired from a cannon.
“It pulls you down so hard then it stops for a second and then it does that four times in a row. If you didn’t have your seatbelt on you would have smashed your head.”
The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) said the incident would be investigated.
According to the US Federal Aviation Administration, most injuries from turbulence occur when passengers are not wearing seatbelts. Most turbulence-related accidents happen at about 9,000 metres (30,000ft).