MIAMI (VINnews) — Eight people were taken to hospitals early Friday after severe turbulence forced a New York-bound Avianca flight from Colombia to divert and land at Miami International Airport, officials said.

Avianca Flight 042 left José María Córdova International Airport in Medellín at 10:40 p.m. Thursday local time, bound for John F. Kennedy International Airport, according to flight-tracking data and airport officials. The jet diverted about three hours into the trip and landed safely in Miami around 3:30 a.m.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said crews responded to multiple patients hurt by turbulence. Eight people were taken by ambulance to hospitals. Officials did not immediately release how seriously they were injured or name the hospitals.

Airport spokesman Gren Chin told the Miami Herald that the flight diverted because of turbulence and that eight people were hospitalized.

Passenger Maria Paula Jimenez told CBS News Miami that ambulances were already waiting near the arrival gate when the plane stopped. She said she counted more than five or six ambulances, several with lights flashing, and that the scene did not look routine.

NBC 6 South Florida reported that cellphone video from the cabin appeared to show passengers holding ice packs to their heads while crew members told them to stay seated with seat belts fastened. The station said its cameras later showed some travelers arriving at a hospital with luggage, and others on stretchers, including a flight attendant still in uniform and a woman wearing a neck brace.

One woman aboard the plane told NBC 6 she wanted only to go home, adding that an episode like that makes a person value life.

A later Avianca flight was scheduled to leave Miami for Kennedy Airport at 8:25 a.m. Friday, according to FlightAware.

Avianca had not immediately issued a public statement on the cause. ABC News reported weather in the area at the time, but authorities had not said whether weather produced the turbulence. The extent of the injuries remained unknown Friday morning.