5 passengers injured after severe turbulence on United flight

  • SkyWest flight 5690 headed to Houston took off from Missouri Sunday afternoon
  • Five people injured after severe turbulence so plane stopped in Waco
  • Another aircraft was dispatched to fly customers from Waco to Houston
A United Airlines airplane sits parked on the runway

A United Airlines airplane sits parked at a gate at Newark Liberty International Airport on Feb. 20, 2025, in Newark, New Jersey. (Getty Images)

Want to see more of NewsNation? Get 24/7 fact-based news coverage with the NewsNation app or add NewsNation as a preferred source on Google!

(NewsNation) — A United Airlines flight made an emergency landing in Waco, Texas, on Sunday evening after experiencing severe turbulence that injured five people on board, according to media reports.

NBC News wrote that SkyWest flight 5690, which had been operating as United Express, which is in United Airlines’ regional flight service network, took off from Missouri’s Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri at 4:48 p.m. C.T. It was headed to George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, per data on FlightAware.com.

While in the air, the plane, a Bombardier CRJ-200, started getting turbulence that hurt five passengers, causing it to land at Waco Regional Airport, SkyWest Airlines said in a statement to NBC. There were 29 passengers and three crew members, NBC wrote. The five people injured were taken to the hospital, SkyWest’s statement said.

“Medical personnel met and evaluated passengers, and five passengers were transported to the hospital,” SkyWest told NBC. “SkyWest and United are making sure all customers get the care they need and dispatched another aircraft to fly the customers from Waco to Houston.”

Travel

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AUTO TEST CUSTOM HTML 20260112181412