Passengers flying to a Mediterranean summer in Tunisia faced midair horror when a Turkish Airlines flight "started to plummet" after repeated attempts to land in stormy weather in the capital, Tunis. Severe turbulence hit flight TK 661 from Istanbul while approaching Tunis-Carthage International Airport last week.
A passenger, identified as Marina Maiskaya, shared a video of mid-flight horror on Instagram, showing passengers gripping their seats as the aircraft shook due to bad weather that turned an otherwise smooth journey into a frightening ordeal.
In the clip, passengers throughout the cabin can be heard screaming, with one person repeating, "We will die, we will die, we will die!"
Maiskaya turns the phone camera towards the screen in front of her, showing what appears to be the flight radar data indicating the plane circling in a spot ahead of an attempted landing.
"The @turkishairlines flight to Tunisia took off during the day, and the flight itself was smooth, but things turned absolutely terrifying as soon as we began our descent. I have never in my life feared for my life like that--and my mom was with me, too," she wrote.
The passenger said that the pilot tried to land the plane at the same airport three times, "flying right through a storm!"
"We were shaken violently each time, and on the third attempt, we actually started to plummet... I'm not entirely sure, but at one point it seemed like the pilot was about to try landing there a fourth time, going through the storm all over again. But people started panicking even more, screaming, "No! Another country, please! A different airport," she wrote.
According to media reports, the flight was ultimately diverted from Tunis-Carthage International Airport to Enfidha-Hammamet International Airport, about 60 miles south of Tunis, where it landed safely.
"We made it through safely--perhaps thanks to the @turkishairlines pilots," Maiskaya added.
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