At least seven people were injured on a flight heading to Texas after lightning reportedly struck the plane.

The Federal aviation Administration (FAA) said Lufthansa flight 469 was flying from Frankfurt, Germany, to Austin, Texas , when it experienced “significant turbulence” at 37,000 feet altitude over Tennessee on Wednesday night, WUSA9 reported.

The pilot executed an emergency landing at Dulles International Airport in Virginia at around 9:10 p.m.

Seven people were transported to local hospitals to be treated for injuries when the plane landed.

A man on Twitter said his wife had been on flight and that the people who had been injured were not wearing seatbelts because the turbulence came as a surprise.

“My wife was on that flight she sent this pic,” Twitter user @ModerMuna wrote alongside a photo.

“This is what the inside looked like food everywhere, people who didn’t have the seat belts fastened got hurt mostly cause it came as surprise without seat belt sign on and lighting hit the plane badly went 1k ft down & up.”

Newsweek has contacted Lufthansa, FAA and the Twitter user for comment.

A Lufthansa passenger plane takes off from Tegel Airport on September 6, 2012 in Berlin, Germany.
Sean Gallup/Getty Images