Two passengers, two flight attendants injured by turbulence on flight from NC to Florida

Two passengers and two flight attendants were injured by turbulence on a flight that landed Wednesday at St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport.

Officials said the Allegiant flight was traveling from Asheville, North Carolina, with 179 passengers and six crew members on the flight.

One passenger called the experience petrifying.

"More than halfway through descending, and all of sudden, we heard a small turbulence," said passenger Lisa Spriggs. "And the stewardess fell to ground than hit major turbulence, which was petrifying, and she was literally like [the movie] 'The Matrix' [to] watch her go up in the air and land straight down. She broke her ankle."

Passengers say the injured were taken off on stretchers to the hospital.

WRAL News spoke with Bob Thomas, a flight instructor, to learn how the plane could've had turbulence this severe. He believes the plane ran into storms as it entered Florida.

"When you have thunderstorms and storms rising, there's also going to be some kind of descending motion too," Thomas said. "Because of all the rain and everything else. What goes up must come down."

Thomas also said that descending that rapidly that quickly will make passengers feel like they're in a freefall.

"It's almost like you're in space as opposed to in an airplane," Thomas said. "So, everything around you is floating and then all of a sudden, it catches up to you and slams you down."

The Federal Aviation Administration said it will investigate the incident.

Anthony Brickhouse, an associate professor of aerospace safety with Embrey-Riddle Aeronautical University, said the FAA's investigation will break down into three main questions.

"They'll be looking into three questions: 'What exactly happened?' 'Why did that happened?' And most importantly, 'What could be done to prevent it again?'" Brickhouse said. "They'll be looking into the meteorological side. What information did the flight crew have? How quickly did they have that information?"