At least 50 people were injured this Monday due to a complicated incident recorded on a flight of the Chilean-Brazilian airline Latam that took off from the city of Sydney, in Australia, bound for Santiago, Chile. The 13 most affected passengers were sent to a hospital in the city of Auckland, New Zealand, due to their injuries, one of them in serious condition, according to local emergency teams.
On the Sydney-Auckland-Santiago route, flight LA800, had 263 passengers and nine crew members traveling. Some of the passengers themselves shared videos of the incident that New Zealand media have shared on their social networks. In the images you can see how the shaking of the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner plane left several of the occupants hit. “People flew through the cabin,” one of the occupants told the network. RNZ.
Brian Jokat, another of the passengers, said that the takeoff took place under normal conditions. “There was no prior turbulence, we just sailed smoothly the entire way. I had fallen asleep and fortunately I had my seat belt on and, suddenly, the plane fell (…) I thought I was dreaming. I opened my eyes and he was on the roof of the plane face up, looking at me. It was like The Exorcist”, he described on the New Zealand radio network, in relation to one of his traveling companions.
Latam has acknowledged the fact through a statement, where it has attributed the incident to a “technical event.” The Chilean-Brazilian company has detailed that the plane managed to land at 4:26 p.m. on Monday (New Zealand time) at Auckland airport according to schedule.
The company has reported that 10 passengers and three cabin crew have been sent to Middlemore Hospital to check their health. The rest of those affected ended up with some minor injuries.
The leg of the flight that linked Auckland with Santiago has been canceled and rescheduled to depart from the New Zealand city starting at 8:00 p.m. local time. During the wait, the airline will provide food and accommodation for travelers waiting for the service to normalize. “Latam Airlines Group regrets the inconvenience and inconvenience that this situation may have caused its passengers, and reiterates its commitment to safety as an untradeable value within the framework of its operational standards,” the firm has expressed.
The General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC), the state agency that is in charge of supervising air travel in Chilean territory, has announced that it will begin an investigation to find out the causes of the incident that affected the plane. Although the case will be in the hands of the New Zealand Accident Investigation Commission, the Chilean entity has announced that it will send a qualified representative to participate in the investigations. He has also said that he remains in contact with the airline to gather more information on the situation.
The Sydney-Auckland-Santiago route is one of the most popular due to the large Chilean immigration present in Australia and New Zealand. Every year thousands of passengers travel from Oceania to the South American country to go on vacation, complete a student exchange or find job opportunities. The massive nature of these trips has led the large airline companies to commit to direct flights, which last almost 17 hours.
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