(VINnews) — Lufthansa passengers whose flight suffered severe turbulence, causing their plane to plummet thousands of feet, were ordered by crew members to delete all photos and video of the event, according to Business Insider, quoting two people on board.
Flight 469 was forced to make an emergency landing in Washington DC. It was headed from Austin, Texas to Frankfurt, Germany on March 1 but ran into “severe turbulence” over Tennessee.
Rolanda Schmidt, one of the seven injured, said the plane took a major drop, sending food and other items flying through the cabin.
Schmidt reportedly banged her head on the plastic tray table in front of her. Once the plane steadied and started to ascend quickly, she said she was pushed upward and banged her head on the ceiling.
“It felt like it hit the eye of a tornado,” Schmidt said. “It would not stop. I thought we were going down.”
A Lufthansa flight that experienced “significant turbulence” was diverted to Virginia and seven people were taken to hospitals.
Social media footage showed food trays, screens, pillows and other items scattered inside the plane: https://t.co/D2vkkFmhNJ pic.twitter.com/wUOgdiB4XH
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 2, 2023
“It was one of those moments where within five-to-ten minutes of processing, you knew you were going to die and we didn’t know if we were going to make it safely anywhere,” she added. “It felt like the insides of your body were being shaken out.”
She said she was in tears and instead of screaming like others during the terrifying ordeal, she prayed, and she texted her husband that she was going to die.
Schmidt described that as the plane was about to make an emergency landing at Dulles Airport, a flight attendant ordered passengers to “delete all your images and videos.”
Several minutes later, the same person made an announcement on the overhead system saying the same thing, but claimed that it was to protect the privacy of passengers.
“That’s not the way that it came across, saying ‘delete all of your pictures’ and all of that,” Schmidt said.