some less sturdy passengers
Here we get into slicing words. I say "less sturdy", it gets interpreted as "fragile". Someone says "crash", and someone else says "hard landing".
With a hard landing, I expect to be shaken, and feel some heavy force. I also expect the plane can fly away again.
With a crash, I expect severe force, and a collision with the ground that renders the plane inoperable, probably to the point of write-off.
I'm partial to the term crash myself.
Maybe the courts will work out a definition for the term. I think you have to expect the defendants to understate the occurrence, and the plaintiffs to overstate it. Everyone has something at stake, don't they?