‘He Hit the Ceiling’: Passengers Rushed to Hospital After Texas Flight Rapidly Drops 4,400 Feet

Two passengers were rushed to the hospital with turbulence-induced injuries after their flight from Colorado to Texas quickly descended more than 4,000 feet in less than a minute. The plane, initially heading from Aspen, Colorado to Houston, Texas on Thursday, was forced to land in Austin due to “severe turbulence” that resulted in at least one of the aforementioned passengers bonking their head on the ceiling.

“We will need a stretcher,” the pilot told air traffic control, according to audio obtained by LiveATC.net. “I know that there is bleeding as well.”

SkyWest Flight 5971, about 90 minutes into the trip, dropped from a cruising altitude of 39,000 feet to 34,650 feet in under 60 seconds due to bad weather. The plane continued to lose altitude over the next few minutes before quickly descending another 25,000 feet in about 6 minutes to land in Austin.

“We hit really, really bad turbulence,” one female passenger said in a video aboard the plane that was obtained by Fox News. The woman said the plane was diverting to Austin because “someone is hurt really, really bad,” before adding “he hit the ceiling” as the aircraft bounced around.

Her video scanned the aircraft and showed the oxygen masks had dropped in front of passengers, which at least one other woman was using during the brief clip. There were 39 passengers aboard the flight, as well as 4 crew members.

Two of those adult passengers were rushed to the hospital “out of an abundance of caution,” a spokesperson for Austin-Bergstrom International Airport told CNN.

“Medical authorities reported to the airport that no injuries are expected to be life-threatening,” the spokesperson added.

Watch the clip above via ABC 7 on YouTube.