The plane the actor and his family were on encountered sudden and severe turbulence, dropping about 10,000 feet (3,048m) in just 10 minutes. Photo: TNS
Matthew McConaughey recently shared his experiences as a passenger on board a Lufthansa flight in March during which seven passengers were injured.
The Interstellar actor flew alongside his wife, model Camila Alves, and a friend, who happened to be a pilot, in the Frankfurt, Germany-bound Airbus A330 last month, which took off from Austin, Texas.
As the plane flew about 37,000 feet (11,277km) above Tennessee, it encountered sudden and severe turbulence, dropping about 10,000 feet (3,048m) in just 10 minutes, according to ABC News. At one point, the plane fell 1,000 feet (304m) within one minute.
"It's suspended disbelief. I mean, it's zero gravity," McConaughey said on an upcoming episode of SiriusXM's podcast Let's Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa, which was obtained by Entertainment Tonight.
"Your red wine and the glass and the plates that your food was on are all suspended, floating, still just in the air. And to look at it for that long, which wasn't that long – one, two, three, four (seconds) – and then everything just comes crashing down."
McConaughey said he didn't have his seat belt on at the time of the first fall, which came without warning. He then reached over to make sure Alves was belted in.
He recalled going through "a 100% feeling" of knowing you "have no way to get control of this situation," calling the experience "a hell of a scare."
"(We) held hands just saying, 'OK, is that it? Is there another one coming?' Another one did come," said Alves, who also joined the podcast.
"It was odd. You hear people's reactions. Some people were ghost silent. Some people had big bursts of laughter. And it was not like, 'Oh, this is fun.' It was like, 'I'm in shock.'"
Alves previously shared her experience hours after the plane was rerouted and landed at Virginia's Dulles International. She posted video on her Instagram of the aftermath on the plane, showing dinner rolls, towels and plates of food strewn across the cabin's floor.
"Everything was flying everywhere," she wrote. "To respect the privacy of those around me that's all I am showing but the plane was a CHAOS And the turbulence keep on coming." – Los Angeles Times/Tribune News Service
