Parkites Charlotte and Matthew Turner were on Delta flight 56 from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam when it hit serious turbulence over the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming Wednesday.
Charlotte Turner said it was about an hour into the flight and flight attendants were just starting to hand out snacks and drinks to the 275 passengers on the Airbus.
“We hit some turbulence, and the first one was like, ‘Okay, that was big. That was pretty big.’ And then the second one was bigger. And then I just, all I remember was we were just dropping in the air, and I hear people screaming. I see carts flying in the air, people flying in the air, and stuff everywhere,” she said.
In a phone call from Norway Friday, Turner said she and her husband are frequent flyers, but had never experienced turbulence like this.
She said the plane was surrounded by clouds, which added to the fear and uncertainty on board. But the scariest part was the sound of the wind whooshing against the plane.
“You could feel it lifting the plane back up,” Turner said. “It felt like we had no control and oh god, it literally was like a low vibration whoosh against the walls that like rattled things, and you could feel it.”
Turner thought the turbulence would end after the first few bumps, but it continued for about five minutes. During the final turbulent drop, passengers not wearing seatbelts and flight attendants serving drinks were thrown around the cabin.
“That last one was probably the scariest moment I've ever experienced on a plane, because we dropped, I think it was about 400 meters,” Turner said.
That’s about 1,300 feet.
Turner said a man nearby who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt flew up and left a crack on the ceiling with his head, and a couple a few rows ahead got whiplash. There are also reports a flight attendant broke a rib.
Once things calmed down, passengers went silent but Turner said some unbuckled their seatbelts to grab phones that had been thrown around the cabin. Flight attendants yelled at them to stay in their seats.
When the plane was finally diverted and landed in Minneapolis, Turner said passengers cheered.
In total, 25 people were injured, including seven crew members.
Turner’s advice after the harrowing flight: always wear your seatbelt.
“The chaos was because people weren't buckled and things were able to fly around, hurting people,” she said.
National Weather Service Meteorologist Sam Webber said there are many causes for flight turbulence. The most common are changes in wind speed and direction. Mountain ranges can also disrupt the air — that’s a phenomenon called mountain wave development.
“It's basically when you get a lot of strong wind rolling over a mountain range, and you get kind of a wave to develop on the downwind side of the mountain range,” Webber said. “Very commonly, you can get moderate to severe turbulence with those mountain wave developments.”
This may have been a factor on the Delta flight, which passed over the Rocky Mountains.
Webber said thunderstorms can also cause turbulence as they have their own wind patterns. And a Salt Lake City branch of the National Weather Service's aviation unit warned of thunderstorm potential in Wyoming Wednesday.
Charlotte Turner is on KPCW’s Community Advisory Board.
