Turbulence injures 26 on Rio-Houston flight

MIAMI - Some passengers were snoozing while others snacked when the first turbulence rattled Continental Flight 128 over the Atlantic. Suddenly, the jetliner began to plunge and shake violently, hurling passengers over seatbacks and slamming them against luggage bins.

The Boeing 767 made an emergency landing in Miami at 5:30 a.m. Monday so at least 26 injured, four seriously, could receive medical help. But the sudden turbulence that rocked the overnight flight from Rio de Janeiro was an all-too-real reminder of an Air France flight - also traveling from Rio - that crashed into the mid-Atlantic in June during thunderstorms, killing all 228 people on board.

"I immediately thought of the Air France flight, that we're going to fall. We're going to fall," said Herman Oppenheimer of Rio, one of 179 people on the flight.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen cautioned against drawing any parallels between the two flights and said the cause and severity of the turbulence in the Continental case was still being investigated. "I wouldn't draw any conclusions," Bergen said.

Flight attendants in the aisle were thrown against the ceiling. Passengers who weren't belted in went flying into the overhead compartments; one woman hit a luggage bin so hard that her head stuck there. Oxygen masks dropped. A child smacked his chest on a tray table and started bl

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