March 11 (UPI) — Thirty people, including two crew members, were injured when a Turkish Airlines flight encountered turbulence over Maine while approaching JFK Airport in New York, authorities said.
Eighteen of the injured passengers taken to the hospital were discharged after treatment, and 10 were still under medical observation as a precautionary measure, the state-owned airline posted on its website.
Flight TK01 encountered “unusual turbulence” about 40 minutes before landing at the airport, the airline said.
Passengers described a range of wounds, including bloody noses and possibly some broken bones to WNBC-TV.
“Nobody announced it or anything like that so we figured out something was wrong,” passenger Sead Nikaj told ABC News. “Then I see people start flying on the plane. Then seeing blood all over. I had one of the ladies next to me, she really fell down from her seat on the floor and all her back was completely bloody, while someone that was working in the airplane, she cracked her leg I think completely.”
The National Weather Service had issued advisories Saturday warning pilots of expected turbulence in New England.
After an inspection of the plane showed no technical failure, it departed from JFK on time to Istanbul, the airline said.
Turkish Airlines flies to 304 destinations and 122 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, making it the largest carrier in the world by number of passenger destinations, according to the airline.
