Matthew McConaughey’s wife was among the passengers on board the Lufthansa flight struck by severe turbulence Wednesday — and has described the “chaos” as the plane plummeted “almost 4,000 feet.”
Camila Alves McConaughey, 41, shared video on Instagram of the cluttered cabin after the mayhem on Flight 469, which was en route from Austin, Texas, to Frankfurt on Wednesday.
“I was told plane dropped almost 4,000 feet, 7 people went to the hospital. Everything was flying everywhere,” she recalled to her 1 million followers.
“To respect the privacy of those around me that’s all I am showing but the plane was CHAOS and the turbulence keep on coming,” the Brazilian model and designer added.
The Airbus A330 encountered the severe turbulence while flying over Tennessee at 37,000 feet and diverted to Dulles International Airport in Virginia, where it landed at 9:10 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration said.
“The @lufthansa flight you are seeing on the news today!!!! Yes…that one. Thank God everyone was safe and ok,” Alves said in a caption alongside the video.
She expressed her gratitude to the German airline for the arrangements in made after the frightening episode, adding that she also grabbed a drink at a bar at the Marriott by the airport.
“I must say everyone @marriottbonvoy by the airport of Washington where we had to divert to and spend the night was so kind! And we made it to the bar with 1 minute before closing,” Alves wrote.
Alves was able to reschedule her flight for the next day, however, she said the skies were still not quite clear for the rest of her aborted journey.
“Just my luck, after last night, I just got on the rescheduled flight and the pilot’s saying we have a 45-minute turbulence getting out of Washington (DC), just my luck, wish me luck,” she said in a video to her Instagram story.
Alves and McConaughey, 53, have three kids together and live in Austin.
Meanwhile, another passenger described how the turbulence hit while dinner was being served.
“It was all of a sudden we lifted up, and then we started dropping down really fast. It felt like about five seconds of free fall,” Susan Zimmerman told ABC News.
“While it was happening, the plates were up, and the ceiling glass was up in the ceiling,” she said. “My bag was flown back behind me, and it was kind of like you’re in slow motion.”
The pregnant woman said she worried about her unborn daughter and husband during the incident, thinking, “God, just let me out of this.”
“I’m five months pregnant, so I was honestly thinking I’m never going to meet my daughter,” Zimmerman told ABC News. “I was trying to just keep myself calm so as to not put any further undue stress on her.”
She said the cabin looked like “a food fight had erupted in the plane,” with dishes, trays and utensils scattered throughout the plane.
Zimmerman said that once things stabilized, the flight attendants checked on the shaken passengers and carried one injured woman to the front of the plane before landing.
“You think you’re never going to be in a quote-unquote ‘Final Destination’ situation. And then here you are,” she added, referring to the supernatural horror film.
A third passenger thought she was going to die.
Samantha Pinto, 29, who was seated by the window in Row 33, told the Washington Post that she saw a baby flying out of a bassinet and the mother reaching out to grab the child from the air as people prayed.
“I seriously thought we were going to die,” said Pinto, an graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin who was headed to Rome with her boyfriend.