At least seven people were hospitalized after the emergency landing of a Lufthansa Airlines flight from Austin (USA, Texas) to Frankfurt. The reason was lightning that hit the plane. According to eyewitnesses, the plane “fell sharply”, while the “fasten your seat belts” sign was not lit, and the tourists received food. “Passengers were surrounded by a large amount of broken glass and screamed in terror,” eyewitnesses wrote. As a result, there were many injuries, some tourists had to be taken to hospitals in wheelchairs due to their injuries. Tourists demand compensation.
The details given by the Daily Mail are as follows: the flight was supposed to last 10.5 hours, but the accident happened in the third hour of the flight when the airliner was over the US territory. The plane was struck by lightning and fell sharply about 300 meters down. At the same time, the “fasten seat belts” sign was not turned on, considering everything, tourists simply did not have time to warn.
As a result, real hell reigned in the salon, where the food had just been delivered. “People were hurt mainly because it was a surprise,” writes a tourist who sent creepy photos already after landing – trays, containers with food, as well as metal cutlery and broken glass, were scattered all over the aisle of the liner.
At the moment of “falling”, all this flew from the tables into the air – and so that “damaged the ceiling of the salon”, as one of the tourists writes. “It was incredibly scary, everything turned out to be a lot of broken glass, screams, and multiple injuries,” complains another commentator, whose sister, and her husband were on the plane. He also said that the tourist sitting in front of them had to be taken out in a wheelchair because he “was badly injured and was bleeding.”
As a result, the liner landed at Washington Dulles International Airport around 9:00 p.m., just three hours after the start of the flight. Seven injured passengers were taken to the hospital, and the rest were placed in hotels, but it is clear that the problems are not over.
The airline had to offer passengers a link to request refunds after an angry passenger wrote on social media: “Many of our plans have been disrupted, our clothes have been ruined and we are expecting a lot more than just a hotel tonight. We would like to receive immediate assistance and compensation for the catastrophic forced landing involving LH469,” the tourist said. However, the other passengers still did not forget to thank the pilots, thanks to whom the real disaster and the actual downfall of the liner were still avoided.