Seven people on a Lufthansa flight from Texas to Germany were taken to hospitals Wednesday after the plane experienced «significant turbulence» and diverted to a Washington, DC-area airport, authorities said.
Lufthansa Flight 469 was flying from Austin to Frankfurt when it encountered turbulence and landed at Dulles International Airport in the Virginia suburb of Washington, a spokesman for the Washington Metropolitan Airport Authority said.
The plane landed safely at the airport at 9:12 p.m., the agency said.
Lufthansa did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Seven passengers were taken to hospitals, the authority said. Their conditions were not immediately disclosed.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the crew reported encountering severe turbulence around 37,000 feet as the aircraft flew over Tennessee. The FAA will investigate.
Turbulence, which the National Weather Service describes like the irregular movement of air resulting from eddies and vertical currents, it sometimes sends passengers to hospitals and forces unexpected landings.
In December, 25 people on a Hawaiian Airlines flight were injured after a flight from Phoenix to Honolulu experienced turbulence. Eight people were injured in June on a flight from Florida to Tennessee that diverted to Alabama.