11 cruise passengers spent the Christmas weekend in the hospital after their chartered flight hit 'freak turbulence'
Horacio Villalobos/Getty Images
- More than 200 British vacationers spent Christmas in the Caribbean after their flight home was diverted.
- A plane of P&O cruisers returning home to the UK earlier this week ran into unpredictable turblence.
- The bumpy flight put 11 passengers in the hospital, but they were all discharged later that day.
A group of British vacationers spent Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day far from home and stuck in Bermuda after their return flight was forced to land following "freak" turbulence that put 11 passengers in the hospital, according to reports.
Two-hundred-and-twenty-five passengers on P&O Cruise line's Caribbean Fly vacation package were wrapping up one and two-week voyages that stopped in locations including Antigua, St. Lucia, and the Dominican Republican, according to CNN.
The British cruisers were set to fly from Barbados back to Manchester on December 23, arriving in the UK just in time for Christmas.
But the travelers' flight — which was chartered by the cruise line — hit a patch of impossible-to-predict turbulence only about two hours after taking off, CNN reported.
An unnamed woman who said she was on the flight plane told Manchester Evening News that the plane erupted into "sheer chaos" following the turbulence, which she compared to being on a roller coaster.
"The plane literally just dropped," the woman told the outlet, adding that it was "so scary."
The plane, which was operated by Maleth Aero was flying at about 38,000 feet when things got bumpy, according to CNN.
The turbulence forced the flight to divert to LF Wade Airport in Bermuda where 11 passengers were taken to a hospital to be treated for minor injuries, a P&O spokesperson told media outlets.
A P&O spokesperson did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
The cruise line representative told CNN that all 11 passengers were discharged the same day.
But the diversion left all 225 passengers stuck in Bermuda over the holiday, as a flight home couldn't be organized until after Christmas.
The cruise line put passengers up in Bermuda hotels, CNN reported.
After an unexpected Caribbean Christmas, the passengers were finally able to depart for Manchester on December 26 and arrived back in the UK on Wednesday morning.
"We are very sorry for this disruption to the journey following their holiday and we worked round the clock with the airline and hotels to take care of the guests and to ensure they get home as soon as possible," P&O told CNN.