It's a significant difference that has a real impact on the satellites. But we also don't say that airplanes plummet when landing or elevators when going down.
To me at least, plummet signals it's a matter of seconds or, perhaps from great altitude, minutes until it hits the bottom. So to me, and that's knowing a thing or two about space, this title is just clickbait and not a good description of the phenomenon observed even for a techy public like HN.
