This is terrifying indeed! Many years ago we had a very similar experience flying non-stop from Asia to the US west coast in early November. The pilot announced clear skies and to sit back and relax. etc. Our plane dropped 1,000 feet and several people got hurt. I have been quite uneasy flying since then, although it’s getting much better. The worst part of our story was that we still had to fly back to Asia (where we lived at the time) in a couple of weeks and I was scared to even think about it. Come to think of it, I’ll have to fly this Friday again, thankfully on a short flight. :-)
I don’t think many people have ever been on flights that DIDN’T experience CAT. It can get scary.
I had a similar experience years ago traveling from Europe to the Middle East where we lived. I had a 2 yr old and a baby with me. Middle of the night..people sleeping..suddenly the plane just drops. Screams, cries, everyone asking what happened..and then it happened again. Everyone was terrified. The pilot never said a thing. Later we were told we were above Turkey where the wind drifts over the mountains and valleys were especially bad. Flying lost all its magic for me after that.
We had a Chinese plane land on an Aleutian base after a similar incident. To this day, I’m not sure it wasn’t pilot error or an attempt at espionage.
That plane dropped 5000’ and one passenger was killed. The plane looked like a tornado hit the interior—there was debris and blood everywhere, even a high-heeled shoe stuck in the ceiling. I’ve flown a lot and had many rough flights, but I never experienced anything like that.
Our plane dropped 1,000 feet
I fly to SE Asia twice a year. Had turbulent flights before, even during dinner time. Weird thing was, I was calm because my seatmate didn’t have that look of terror on his face. I asked him ‘dude, you didn’t look scared bro”. His answer: “because I already accepted that if it’s your time to go, it’s time to go.’