BBC News has a gripping, if alarming, interview with a passenger on an Air France plane which made an emergency landing during a flight to the Azores:

Passengers on an Air France plane forced to make an emergency landing have spoken of people ”crying and screaming” as they feared it would crash.

The AF422 flight from Paris to the Colombian capital, Bogota, made a sudden descent and had to land on the island of Terceira in the Azores on Monday.

Passenger Eden Victoria Erlandsson said there was panic amongst both passengers and cabin crew.

‘Crying and screaming’ as Air France plane loses height (audio/video link on page)

Why the emergency landing? Air France is reported to have said faulty emergency warning notifications in the plane’s systems. A false positive emergency in an airplane is like a bomb scare in a hospital: the costs and risks of emergency measures are in and of themselves life-threatening.

 See also Air France crash: The long hunt for answers (“Exploring the fate of Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic ocean on 1 June 2009, killing everyone on board”)