At least 50 passengers were injured in what airline officials describe as a "technical event" that caused a LATAM Airlines flight from Sydney, Australia, to Auckland, New Zealand, to experience a "strong movement." Dozens of injured passengers and crew members were treated when the flight landed in Auckland in Monday, and at least 12 were hospitalized, CNN reports. Passengers said the plane suddenly nose-dived and they saw people hit the ceiling of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner with such force that some panels were broken. They said some passengers were covered in blood and doctors on board helped "patch up" people with broken bones. Boeing says it is "working to gather more information about the flight."
Aviation expert Peter Clark tells RNZ that the flight radar shows the plane abruptly dropped around 300 feet, apparently after its nose was forced down. "So all those people that were not strapped in with their seatbelts became a flying object," he says. Clark says it's not clear whether pilot error or a mechanical or software issue is to blame.
- "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 tells the New Zealand Herald. Ellwood says he saw three people flying through the air—but he was wearing his seat belt and wasn't injured. "It's validated my belief in seat belts," he says.
- Brian Jokat, another passenger, says the plane suddenly dropped, with no turbulence beforehand, and a passenger near him who wasn't wearing a seat belt hit the ceiling. "I thought I was dreaming. I opened my eyes and he was on the roof of the plane on his back, looking down on me. It was like The Exorcist," Jokat says.
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