On March 1, Lufthansa flight 469, en route from Austin (Texas, USA) to Frankfurt (Germany), suffered severe turbulence while flying over the US state of Tennessee. The commotion was such that trays, utensils and all kinds of objects flew through the air. In a TikTok video, passenger Monica Raygada shows it:
The commotion was such that everyone started taking pictures and videos of what happened. But, as Rolanda Schmidt, one of the seven people who were injured after the incident, explains in Business Insider, Lufthansa staff quickly appeared to ask them to delete all the images they had taken of what had happened.
As he tells it, the first warnings came from a stewardess with a harsh attitude towards the passengers. But, a little later, the same stewardess came out again giving the same instructions, this time justifying that it was to protect the privacy of the passengers.
But these lawsuits went nowhere, and soon the images began to come to light. Beyond the TikTok video we have seen, on Instagram we were able to see a video of the incident recorded by Camila Alves, wife of actor Matthew McConaughey, who happened to be on that flight.
“I want to respect the privacy of those around me [hence the video does not continue and does not show other people] but what I show you is how the plane was a CHAOS [sic] and the turbulence did not stop,” Alves explains in the video’s description. She also says that the plane dropped “almost 4,000 feet” (1,200 meters) suddenly, without following the marked route, and all the passengers thought they were going to crash.