Sandwiches lay strewn across the aisle, as a young passenger whimpered at the back of the plane. Blood trickled from an elderly man’s head, his crimson scalp reflected in red wine stains that blotched a cabin crew member’s white shirt.

“It looked like a house of horror,” confided one of the passengers aboard a Liverpool-Malta flight that hit severe turbulence as it flew over Milan on Tuesday morning.

“People were screaming and crying…vomiting…I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

The violent mid-air turbulence landed an adult and child at Mater Dei Hospital, with three other passengers treated upon arrival for minor injuries. The shock was amplified by just how suddenly things had gone south, the passenger, who asked not to be named, said.

READ: Two hospitalised following Ryanair flight turbulence

“The captain advised everyone to fasten their seatbelts. But before he could even finish the announcement, the plane began to shake extremely violently,” he said.

“People who were still unbuckled were flung against the cabin ceiling. One man banged his head so hard, he broke the panel above his head. I turned around, and saw oxygen masks dangling in front of a row of passengers.”

As the aircraft made its way through the rough patch, it went through repeated bouts of suddenly losing altitude, the passenger recalled.

“Things would steady off, and then the plane would go into free fall. You could feel your stomach lurch.”

Scary, but not dangerous

Aeroplane turbulence is the most common form of injury mid-air. But although it can be a terrifying experience for passengers aboard a flight, it is a regular part of the job for cabin crew and pilots.

Flight crews grade turbulence according to its severity, but even extreme turbulence – its most violent form – is only dangerous in the rarest of cases.

Modern-day aircraft are designed to withstand even the most violent of shakes, with wings capable of flexing to handle strong gusts and technology which helps pilots better detect – and mitigate – climatic conditions around them.

And flying - statistically the safest way to travel - is only getting safer, the numbers show. Last year, 2017, was the safest year on record for commercial air travel worldwide.

So while passengers aboard the Liverpool-Malta flight may have had a terrible fright, it is likely that the captain in charge slept soundly at night.

“It can be hard for a nervous flyer to appreciate, but there’s really nothing to be alarmed about when a plane hits turbulence,” a commercial airline pilot told Times of Malta. “Even in the worst of cases, you’d need something else to go wrong – often human error – to be in trouble. Our first concern is always to ensure passengers arrive safely at their destination.”

Radio silence

The turbulence on the Liverpool-Malta flight lasted around 10 minutes, the passenger said.

"Though it's hard to say exactly, I was quite shaken," he conceded. Once it died down, cabin crew worked hard to restore order to the aircraft.

“One passenger couldn’t find his spectacles, others were missing shoes or laptops,” the eyewitness said. “There were several dazed-looking people around me. We didn’t know what hit us.”

Despite the general concern, the event did not appear to ruffle the captain’s feathers.

“We didn’t hear anything from the cockpit, not even a word of reassurance,” the passenger said. “It would have been nice to know what exactly was going on. Instead we just continued flying to Malta, as though nothing had happened.”

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Ryanair said its pilot had called ahead to ensure paramedics were ready when the plane touched down on Maltese soil.

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