Passengers on a United Airlines flight headed overseas got a scary jolt Wednesday when the plane dropped more than 28,000 feet in ten minutes.
Pilots flying the plane from Newark to Rome had to reverse course back to the airport in Newark, New Jersey, when the incident occured, the New York Post reported Friday.
“United Airlines Flight 510 never made it to Rome after the Boeing 777 experienced an issue with its cabin pressurization, forcing the plane to rapidly drop and the pilot to turn the aircraft carrying 270 passengers and 14 crew members around, a spokesperson told The Post,” the outlet said.
The aircraft left Newark Liberty International Airport just after 8:30 p.m. but touched down again at the same place a few hours later.
A spokesperson with the airline said the plane reversed course to investigate the possible loss of its cabin pressure, adding, “The flight landed safely and there was never any loss of cabin pressure.”
According to Fox News, passengers later boarded a different flight that took them to their destination.
Officials with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also noted a “pressurization issue” happened during the initial flight.
“But before the switch-up, the plane fell some 28,000 feet in just 10 minutes, according to FlightAware data.
A United Airlines flight on its way from Maui to San Francisco came within 800 feet of slamming into the Pacific Ocean in December, per reports, and one passenger likened the experience to a “roller coaster.”
“The United flight left the same day that 36 people were injured due to extreme turbulence around the Maui area on a flight traveling from Phoenix to Honolulu. However, the United flight did not receive the same social media attention as the flight that was impacted by turbulence,” according to Breitbart News.
More recently, United Airlines had to ground flights on one travel day because of a “computer issue” it later fixed before resuming operations, Breitbart News reported on September 5.