FILE -- United Airlines plane leaving DIA in June 2013. (Joe Amon, Denver Post file photo) 
 
 Five people were hospitalized in Montana on Monday — three crew members and two passengers — after a United Airlines flight experienced severe turbulence during a flight from Denver to Billings. 
 
 A United flight attendant remained hospitalized late Monday after being injured during the flight, said Luke Punzenberger, a United spokesman. 
 
 The captain of Flight 1676 declared a medical emergency on the trip after hitting a rough patch of turbulence. 
 
 United Flight 1676, a Boeing 737, left Denver International Airport at about noon and landed without incident in Montana, said Ian Gregor, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. 
 
 Joe Frank, 20, a passenger on board, told The Denver Post in an e-mail that everything was fine, then in an instant, the plane dropped violently, accompanied by a loud "bang." 
 
 "The sudden drop pulled everyone out of their seats, and I mean hard," Frank said. 
 
 The drop was so forceful, Frank said, an infant flew from a parent's arms and landed in another seat nearby. The baby seemed unharmed, just scared, he said. 
 
 Frank was traveling home to Billings after visiting his mother in Texas, he said. 
 
 "I didn't have my seat belt on, so I hit my head pretty hard. But what hurts is my lower back and hips," he said. 
 
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 Passengers reported to television station KTVQ in Billings that one woman hit the ceiling so hard it cracked the panel above her head. 
 
 There were 114 passengers and five crew members on board, Punzenberger said. 
 
 Paramedics responded to the runway, passengers told KTVQ. 
 
 Ryan Parker: 303-954-2409, rparker@denverpost.com or twitter.com/ryanparkerdp 

 Feb 17, 2014 4:48 PM by Simone DeAlba - Q2 News 
 
 Crew members and passengers injured by turbulence aboard Billings-bound flight 
 
 BILLINGS - Paramedics responded to a runway at Billings Logan International Airport on Monday afternoon, following a turbulent flight. 
 
 United Airlines has since issued this official statement on Flight 1676; 
 
 "The flight encountered severe turbulence upon descent into Billings, Montana. Three crew members and a number of passengers were injured. Our primary focus is assisting our employees and passengers who were injured, and our flight safety team will review what happened." 
 
 Eyewitness accounts also help fill in some of the details. 
 
 Bill Dahlin, a passenger aboard the flight, said the plane dropped sharply, without warning from the crew, as it began its decent into Billings. 
 
 "There was a lot of screaming, a lot of hollering," Dahlin told Q2. 
 
 He said the crew was as surprised as the passengers at the sudden drop. 
 
 "I think they were somewhat panicked," Dahlin said. "I think they were trying to assess things themselves so they really didn't offer any explanation because of what happened so quickly." 
 
 He said one woman hit the ceiling so hard it cracked the panel above her head. Another woman called out for her baby, which he took as an indication that she had lost control of her infant. 
 
 "I have flown a lot, and I do know you run into things like this," Dahlin said. "This [turbulence] happened to be a lot rougher than what I'm accustomed to." 
 
 Dahlin says he was uninjured during the flight. 

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 DENVER -- Three crew members and "a number" of passengers were injured Monday when a United Airlines flight encountered severe turbulence, a spokeswoman for the airline said. 
 
 The captain declared an emergency on United Flight 1676, which was flying from Denver to Billings, Montana, said United's Christen Davis. The flight met turbulence as it descended. 
 
 "Our primary focus is assisting our employees and passengers who were injured, and our flight safety team will review what happened," the spokeswoman said. 
 
 The Federal Aviation Administration said the pilot "declared a medical emergency after a flight attendant was injured by turbulence. The plane landed in Billings without incident." 
 
 United says five people were taken to St. Vincent Healthcare in Billings. A flight attendant had head injuries and she was in critical condition Monday night. Two other crew members and two passengers were treated and released from that hospital. 
 
 There were 114 passengers and five crew members onboard, including passenger Bill Dahlin. 
 
 "There was a lot of screaming, a lot of hollering," he told CNN affiliate KTVQ. 
 
 Dahlin said one woman hit the ceiling so hard that the ceiling cracked. He said he thought the crew was just as surprised by the sudden turbulence as the passengers were. 
 
 "I think they were somewhat panicked," KTVQ reported Dahlin said. "I think they were trying to assess things themselves so they really didn't offer any explanation because of what happened so quickly." 
 
 Other witnesses described a baby flying out its parent's arms and landing two rows back. The parent didn't know where the baby was for a short time. 
 
 Others on the plane say the turbulence was so severe that it felt like the jet was out of control for a minute. They believe it happened over Wyoming as the plane was about to start its descent into Billings. 
 
 Last month, a United Airlines flight returned to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey after turbulence injured five flight attendants. 
 
 The plane hit "severe turbulence" about 45 minutes into the Beijing-bound United Flight 89, said Ron Marsico, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport. 
 
 CNN contributed to this report 

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 Five people were taken to hospital – one of them in a critical condition – after a United Airlines jet ran into severe turbulence on a flight from Denver to Billings, Montana, on Monday. 
 
 A passenger said one woman hit the cabin ceiling so hard that she cracked a panel during the incident, which happened as the Flight 1676 was making its descent for a scheduled landing at 1:23 p.m. local time (3:23 p.m. ET). 
 
 Three flight attendants and two passengers went to hospital, the airline said in a statement. All were released except for one flight attendant. 
 
 St. Vincent Healthcare in Billings said the remaining patient was in a critical condition. 
 
 Joe Frank, 20, a passenger on board on the Boeing 737-700 told The Denver Post in an e-mail that the aircraft dropped suddenly and with such force that an infant flew from a parent's arms and landed, unharmed, in another seat nearby. 
 
 "The sudden drop pulled everyone out of their seats, and I mean hard," Frank told the newspaper. 
 
 Another passenger, Bill Dahlin, told local station KTVQ that one woman hit the ceiling so hard it cracked the panel above her head.
– Severe turbulence rocked a United Airlines jet out of Denver as it made its descent yesterday afternoon in Billings, Montana, and stories of just how chaotic things got are emerging. "There was a lot of screaming, a lot of hollering," says Flight 1676 passenger Bill Dahlin. Fox31 Denver reports that an infant was thrust from a parent's arms and landed two rows back; it was unharmed, though it took some time for the parent to locate the child. Dahlin tells KTVQ he heard a mother cry out for her baby, and saw something more painful: A woman whose head hit the ceiling so hard she cracked the overhead panel. The Denver Post reports that 114 passengers and five crew were aboard; the airline says three crew members and two passengers were hospitalized, though all but one flight attendant had been released by late yesterday, per a United rep. NBC News reports that she is in critical condition. One passenger told the Post that the turbulence came suddenly, and was paired with a noisy "bang." "The sudden drop pulled everyone out of their seats, and I mean hard," he said.