By Jessica McSweeney, Amelia McGuire and Julie Power
As many as 40 people on the LATAM flight from Sydney to Auckland were sent flying into the air, and many screamed for help, a passenger on the Boeing 787-9 said.
“There was a massive airpocket, and about 30 to 40 people have gone flying up in the air,” said the passenger Max Dinely who recorded a video of the aftermath.
The footage obtained by Nine News captured a man holding a bandage to a bloody head wound.
“They’ve smacked their heads, we’ve got one person with a neck injury now bleeding out,” Dinely said in the video.
Chilean authorities said it will investigate the sudden altitude drop of the flight by the Chilean-owned airline LATAM. It will focus on human error or technical fault as New Zealand authorities seize cockpit voice recordings and flight data.
In the video, a passenger is seen calling: “Over here, he is bleeding quite badly.”
Injured passengers on the LATAM Airlines flight from Sydney to Auckland flight on Monday evening.Credit: Max Dinely
The Nine News report says a man emerged from a toilet with blood streaming down his face.
Doctors on the flight rushed to help the wounded passengers, many of whom suffered cuts and bruises.
A man with a neck injury had his head strapped to the back of his seat with a belt in an effort to immobilise the area.
One of the injured passengers on the LATAM flight.Credit:
The LATAM Airlines Boeing 787-9 was two hours into its journey on Monday evening when, with no warning, it dropped, sending passengers and crew “flying” into the roof, injuring 50.
Four Australians were among the 10 passengers and three crew hospitalised after the incident on board the Chilean multinational airline’s plane.
New Zealand’s Transport Accident Investigation Commission said Chilean authorities had confirmed they had opened an investigation into the flight and it was assisting with their inquiries.
As the incident occurred in international airspace, the Chilean accident investigation authority, Direccion General de Aeronautica Civil (DGAC), will lead the inquiry.
Tim Collins, director of air industry consultancy Upstream Aviation, said the investigation will likely focus on potential software faults and the pilots’ roles.
One passenger described how people flew into the ceiling during the “sudden movement”.Credit:
“The screens can blank out, but there are some small standby instruments that are completely independently battery powered … it is very rare for them all to go off for a short amount of time; it’s likely that the autopilot tripped, and that could be why the aircraft plunged,” Collins said.
“It could be something as simple as a pilot getting out of their seat and accidentally knocking the control.”
Collins said the aircraft has more electronics than some other aircraft.
The US regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration, issued two directives in 2016 and 2020 that instructed airlines to switch the control panels of their aircraft on and off regularly to avoid a midair reset and avoid “several potentially catastrophic failure scenarios”.
‘They’ve smacked their heads, one person was bleeding out.’
Max Dinely, a passenger on the LATAM flight
This process is known as “repetitive cycling” and is required every 51 days to avoid stale data from being displayed. It’s not yet clear if this directive has any relevance to the issue on the LATAM flight.
As aviation authorities work to determine how the incident unfolded, passengers described the moment when the plane suddenly dropped during an otherwise calm flight.
“I was seated at the back of the cabin and watched tens of people fly straight up to the roof of the plane, hit their heads and came crashing back towards the seats,” passenger Nurhian Dulay from Sydney said.
“I’m a pretty confident flyer but it was definitely horrifying.”
Dulay said there was no explanation by the crew, some of whom were injured, and that the plane burst into applause when it landed an hour later in Auckland.
Another passenger, Brian Jokat, said when the plane dropped suddenly his seat-neighbour flew upwards with his back into the ceiling.
“His back is on the ceiling and he’s up in the air, and then he drops down and hits his head on the armrest. The whole plane is screaming,” he said.
“The plane then started taking a nose dive and I was just thinking, ‘OK, this is it, we’re done’.
“The ceiling’s broken from people’s heads and bodies hitting it. Basically, neck braces were being put on people, guys’ heads were cut, and they were bleeding. It was just crazy.”
Wearing a seatbelt at the time of the incident, Jokat walked away unscathed.
Another passenger told The New Zealand Herald that the terrifying incident “validated my belief in seatbelts”.
“A man was in the toilet when the jolt happened, he came out of the bathroom with blood streaming down one side of his face,” passenger Lucas Ellwood said.
LATAM referred to the incident on Monday as a “technical event” but on Tuesday it updated its statement to call it a “strong shake” that is under investigation.
“As a result of the incident, some passengers and cabin crew were affected. They received immediate assistance and were evaluated or treated by medical staff at the airport as needed,” the airline said in a statement.
“LATAM regrets the inconvenience and injury this situation may have caused its passengers and reiterates its commitment to safety as a priority within the framework of its operational standards.”
Boeing said it was working to gather more information about the flight and will provide support to LATAM.
There has been an increase in incidents plaguing aircraft manufactured by the global giant in recent months. In January, a door plug on an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 blew out in midair, exposing 177 passengers to the elements.
The incident prompted all airlines to check their Max 9 fleets, and Alaska and its rival, United Airlines, quickly detected multiple other planes with loose bolts.
Boeing’s Max narrow-body aircraft replaced the older 737s and has four variations – the Max 7, 8, 9 and 10 – that launched in 2016. The 737 Max is more fuel-efficient and has been quickly embraced by international giants including Ryanair, which has 300 Max 10s on order.
Boeing was forced to ground all Max 8s across the world after crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019 that killed 346 passengers. The Max was cleared to return to service in 2020 and is now used by more than 60 airlines all over the world, some of which fly to and from Australia.
The aviation giant’s safety standards have come under repeated scrutiny in recent years as a result of these incidents and testimonies from former employees.
One US-based whistleblower and former employee, John Barnett, was found dead on Tuesday, as first reported by the BBC.
Barnett – who worked for the manufacturing giant for 32 years until 2017 – had testified against the company in a Charleston-based court last week.
With Reuters
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