Doha to Washington Dulles this morning was a routine passenger flight interrupted by a nightmare scenario. Chaotic scenes played out at Lajes airbase after a Qatar Airways passenger plane was forced to make an emergency landing in this morning’s bad weather over the Azores.

The story was covered by a journalist traveling on the plane, who described how it suddenly lost altitude, sending passengers “flying into the air, hitting the ceiling and landing in the aisles”.

“A three year old Lebanese boy flew out of his seat, and landed across the aisle into the lap of an Indian man who held him”, wrote Al Jazeera journalist Azad Essa, who described the turbulence as “horrific”.

DN quoted Azores’ Civil protection source André Avelar as “not knowing” anything about Essad’s angry tweets.