Passengers clung to their seats and tray tables for stability as the plane dropped hundreds of feet in turbulent air
The Russian Azur Air Boeing 737-800 with 175 on board 'went into free-fall' as it approached Black Sea resort of Sochi in southwestern Russia.
The plane had left Ekaterinburg earlier that day but was forced to abort its flight plan and make an emergency landing in Krasnodar, some 180 miles north of Sochi, after suffering severe turbulence and the lightning strike.
'It was a wild horror,' said one passenger, while another said they were saying goodbye to life convinced they would crash.
Comment: Considering our changing atmosphere and the surge in strange sky phenomena, it's notable that there have been a number of plane crashes recently, in Russia in particular, which leads one to wonder whether at least some of those incidents could also have had some weather-related cause. As documented in a 2015 SOTT report The sky's the limit? Aircraft crashes and accidents for June, this trend does appear to have been around for at least a decade:
- A military training jet crashed in a Texas suburb, 'heavily' damaging 2 homes (19th September 2021)
- Siberian passenger plane crash kills 4 - Czech-built L-410 aircraft reportedly landed in Taiga & 'caught fire' (12th September 2021)
- ANOTHER An-28 passenger plane goes missing in Russia, crashed plane is later found with all people alive (16th July 2021)
- Plane crashes in Russia's far east, all 28 people on board including local government officials dead (6th July 2021)
- Philippine military's worst air disaster kills 50, wounds 49 (4th July 2021)
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