A United Airlines flight en route to Washington, D.C., was forced to make an emergency landing after the Boeing aircraft experienced a sudden drop in altitude, injuring nearly 40 people on board. Six of these individuals sustained serious injuries and were hospitalized, according to official reports and video footage of the incident.
The incident took place on United Airlines Flight 613, which had to return to Nigeria on Friday after the aircraft unexpectedly dropped altitude 93 minutes into its flight to Dulles International Airport, as per data from Flightradar24. The sudden descent caused chaos among the 245 passengers and 11 crew members on board, with food, trays, and personal belongings being tossed around the cabin, as depicted in a video shared on social media.
The video footage shows passengers screaming as objects were hurled across the cabin following the sudden descent. The aircraft was filled with passengers, and the unexpected drop caused items to scatter throughout the cabin, as per the video.
The flight was diverted back to Lagos, where authorities reported that 31 passengers and seven crew members were injured, according to a statement from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria. Of these, four passengers and two crew members were seriously injured and were transported to Duchess Hospital in Ikeja, as noted in the statement.
Emergency crews were on standby just four minutes after the pilot of the Boeing 787-800 aircraft reported distress at 1:20 a.m., according to the statement. All six individuals who were seriously injured have since been discharged from the hospital, a United Airlines spokesperson informed CNN.
The cause of the mid-flight disturbance is still under investigation, although severe turbulence has been ruled out, according to the report. The airline is collaborating with aviation authorities in the U.S. and Nigeria to determine the cause, the United Airlines spokesperson told the outlet.
Michael Achimugu, Nigeria’s director of public affairs and consumer protection at the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, confirmed the incident to Nigeria’s state-run media outlet Radio Nigeria. He assured the public that there were no fatalities and stated that affected passengers had been accommodated in hotels, according to the report.
Interestingly, the same aircraft was diverted during a similar incident while flying from Lagos to Washington Dulles International Airport on Tuesday. That flight experienced a rapid descent of 1,000 feet approximately 89 minutes into the flight, according to FlightRadar data. It remains unclear whether the two incidents are related, the outlet reported.