United Airlines passengers share the experience of landing at 28,000 feet on board

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by Matthew Sedaka

A Jersey City artist has recounted the agonizing moment she thought she was “going to die” on a United Airlines plane, which descended nearly 30,000 feet in just 10 minutes earlier this week.

Tattoo LoverThe 47-year-old said she was on board United Airlines Flight 510 from Newark to Rome with her boyfriend when the plane suddenly began descending, sending herself and other passengers into a state of extreme panic.

“I saw people’s heads turning, people looking at each other, and people searching for answers without screaming,” she told the newspaper.

She later added: “I literally thought you were going to die.”

Shortly after the Italy-bound Boeing 777 took off at 9:20 p.m., the artist, who was traveling to celebrate her birthday and meet art gallery owners in Rome, said the captain and flight attendants began repeatedly accessing the intercom to alert passengers. About the matter. Possible problems with the aircraft.

Around 10:07 In the evening, Lover recalled a “sick feeling” sweeping through her body as the plane leaned forward, before descending to 28,000 feet over the course of 10 minutes, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.

“I first did my best to text my daughter without causing fear, and tell her that I love her very much and I am proud of her,” she said, later recalling how the flight attendant, speaking to the passenger in the midst of the chaos, seemed as if “she was crying or she was crying or she felt helpless.” .

In the midst of her own horror show on the plane, Laufer said, her daughter had been tracking the plane online, and was concerned when her mother inexplicably spun in circles in the air over Halifax.

“She was on the phone with United asking them why she saw her mother’s flight [was] “We’re going in circles over Halifax,” she said. “United told her everything [was] fine.”

The plane’s captain eventually came forward and announced that the plane might need to make an emergency landing in Halifax, before revealing that the plane had begun to dump fuel and was rerouted back to Newark Liberty International Airport, landing just before 12:30 a.m.

In a video shared with The Post by Lovere at the airport gate, a United captain claimed over the speakerphone at the attendance desk that there was a “6 or 8-inch hole on the side of the plane, and that’s what caused our pressure problem.”

A United Airlines spokesperson said the plane returned to Newark Liberty International Airport “to address a possible loss of cabin pressure.”

The spokesman said: “The flight landed safely and there was no loss of cabin pressure.”

Lover and her boyfriend were rebooked on the next United flight to Rome hours later, but the experience shattered any sense of security on future flights.

“I would definitely be on edge” on planes, she said.

“Maybe I’ll check every window now. Every crack that goes by it.”