Passengers on a bumpy Southwest flight from Maryland to North Carolina described a horrific trip that caused several travelers to vomit and left them stranded in a closed South Carolina airport overnight.
On Friday, at least two people aboard a Southwest flight from Maryland became ill after the plane shook violently due to weather-related issues while landing in Raleigh, North Carolina.
At least one passenger passed out after having a panic attack.
Passengers onboard flight 3094 said that their flight departed Baltimore, Maryland, almost an hour late.
At about 9pm eastern time, when the flight began to descend towards Raleigh, the plane experienced extreme turbulence, the local news outlet WGHP reported.
“It was quite a horrifying experience. We go to land in Raleigh and the plane starts shaking like crazy,” passenger Nicholas Reed said, according to WGHP. Reed, a North Carolina native, was traveling with his girlfriend, Krys Spence.
Soon, according to Reed, the pilot announced that the plane would be making an emergency landing in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
A Southwest official at Myrtle Beach’s airport said in a statement that the emergency landing was necessary because poor weather conditions caused the plane to run low on fuel.
“We made the decision to safely divert Southwest flight 3094 … due to weather conditions,” airline officials said, according to the New York Post.
The plane’s altitude dipped as low as 1,350ft, WGHP reported.
After the plane landed in Myrtle Beach, passengers were told that another plane would take them to Raleigh.
But, Reed said, passengers had neither their luggage nor access to food because the airport’s vending machines and restaurants were closed along with much of the rest of the facility.
By about 1am, a second plane finally flew the group to Raleigh, where they landed at about 4am.
“When we got back here to Raleigh … it was a really terrible experience,” Reed added. “They didn’t offer us meal vouchers or anything. I was like, we fly Southwest all the time.”
Southwest apologized for the inconvenience to passengers, referring those with concerns to their customer relations team.
The troublesome flight described by Reed was the latest travel issue plaguing the budget airline.
In December, Southwest cancelled thousands of flights, leaving customers traveling nationwide for the holidays stranded without their luggage.
Southwest apologized for the mass cancellations, offering ticket refunds and other reimbursements for affected passengers.
