Stormy Landing Attempt by Southwest
 

What's Stormy got to do with this?

Passengers becoming fearful during turbulence is nothing new.
I guess the question is how to put them at ease. The pilot would have known that severe turbulence was possible - but how do you explain that the aircraft is build for anything that will be encountered when you don't know in advance how much of a trial you are about to go through.

You don't want to alarm everyone with an exaggerated and pessimistic description.

Here' the original news item. Looks like a WWL-TV employee was onboard and texted a tip to the news crew doing a local storm package at MSY for the Live at Five. They rushed to baggage claim (Southwest checks two bags for 'free') to meet the pax after the divert to PFN for weather.

Derivative news stories will run for the next couple of days in the news cycle. At some point Facebook and Apple news feeds will pick up this item and it will be 'trending'. The morning news shows will possibly do a short video package with 'I knew we wuz gonna die and see Baby Jesus' sound bites from the WWL-TV footage.

wwltv.com | 'People were screaming' - passengers scared as flight tried to land during severe weather

The pax and crew are still alive and well.

Shame no dash cam.