The accident flight of the LATAM company that covered the route between Sydney and Santiago de Chile had
a "technical incident" that caused the aircraft to sink
for a few moments in which it lost altitude.
Inside doors, everything went out of control.
As a result, 50 people were injured, of which 13 had to receive assistance in New Zealand.
Now, the first passengers began to tell details about the dramatic moments in which everything went out of control.
“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.
He was like The Exorcist
,” said Brian Jokat, a Canadian passenger who spoke to New Zealand radio station RNZ about how he saw another passenger.
"People flew away
because they weren't wearing their belts. Some people
were quite injured
. People were really afraid," said this man, his voice shaking.
The passengers explained to the local press that the device,
a Boeing 787 Dreamliner
according to the airline, lost altitude rapidly when flying over the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, and
propelled all the people who were not wearing seat belts to the roof. .
Flight LA800 "had a technical incident during the trip that
caused a strong movement
," declared a spokesperson for the LATAM company, based in Chile, without giving further details.
The damage caused to the roof of the cabin of the Latam plane (Brian Adam Jokat- Reuters)
The plane, which was headed to Santiago, landed "as planned at Auckland airport," he added since it had a stopover there.
The spokesperson deeply regretted "the inconvenience caused by this situation."
The rescue services indicated that they were alerted around 4 p.m. (midnight in Argentina), when the plane began its descent towards the Auckland airport, the largest city in New Zealand.
A dozen ambulances and other medical vehicles were deployed to treat the injured.
The plane, which was headed to Santiago, landed "as planned at Auckland airport."
Photo: EFE
"Our ambulance teams assessed the condition of around 50 patients, one of whom was in serious condition," Gerard Campbell, from St John's emergency services, told AFP.
"Twelve patients were transported to the hospital," he added.
In a previous statement she mentioned 13 injured.
At least three of them were part of the crew.
As they began to recover, passengers began arriving in Santiago from New Zealand.
“There was no turbulence, nothing.
Suddenly everything went off and (the plane)
went flat on its face, like a roller coaster, and then went up
,” said Verónica Martínez, a passenger who spoke to the Chilean press upon arriving at the Santiago Airport.
“The people who were not wearing seat belts, who were coming out of the bathroom, the same stewardesses who were walking.
What impressed me the most was that a woman behind me was with a baby, and I
saw the baby fly
.
It was terrible,” she said.
Another passenger, chef Lucas Ellwood, told AFP that everything "happened in an instant," he told AFP.
"The collision of people against the ceiling caused the plates to come off. The man behind me was in the bathroom when it happened, poor thing.
He explained to me that he had gone through the ceiling
," he added.
What happened on board the LATAM flight?
In videos broadcast on the NZ Herald website,
several crew members and passengers are seen treating an injured woman on the floor
of the aircraft, while a message in Spanish asking if there is a doctor on board is heard over the loudspeakers.
This incident takes place two months after another model from the American manufacturer Boeing
reported a problem.
For this reason, this Wednesday Chilean experts traveled to New Zealand to investigate the "strong shaking."
This was confirmed by the General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics of Chile (DGAC) - which leads this investigation in coordination with the New Zealand Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) - in a brief statement.
Chilean authorities have not specified when they will have a clear idea of what happened to that plane while it was flying in international airspace, although according to Mary Shiavo, former head of the US National Transportation Board, they may have a clear idea of this incident in about 30 days when the evidence is analyzed and the preliminary report of what happened is presented.
"They lost (sight of) all the instruments of a fully loaded passenger plane, it is a serious problem," stressed the lawyer specialized in aviation in an interview broadcast today on Radio New Zealand.
Although it is suspected that a computer failure has occurred, what is clear is that "as soon as the information is obtained from the black box, the mystery will probably be solved," Shiavo said.
With information from AFP