A LATAM Boeing 787 had a pretty dramatic flight today, leading to mid-flight injuries. What’s surprising is what reportedly caused this incident.
LATAM Boeing 787 suddenly drops mid-flight
This situation happened today (Monday, March 11, 2024), and involves LATAM flight LA800 from Sydney (SYD) to Auckland (AKL). This is a 2h42min fifth freedom flight, covering a distance of 1,345 miles, which continues to Santiago (SCL). The flight was operated by an eight-year-old Boeing 787-9 with the registration code CC-BGG.
According to passengers onboard, around two-thirds of the way into the flight, the plane “just dropped out of the sky.” One traveler says he was napping during the incident, and woke up to see his seat mate on the ceiling of the plane. “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.”
The ceiling of the aircraft was badly damaged from people hitting it. Once the plane stabilized, doctors onboard helped with treating passengers, as a lot of people had cuts and were bleeding.
There was no advance warning that anything was wrong, which is also probably why so many people were injured. This is a good reminder to always wear your seat belt, even if you think it’s a smooth ride, because things can change in a split second.
There was quite the medical response at Auckland Airport once this flight landed. One person is reportedly in serious condition, while 10 patients were taken to the hospital with minor to moderate medical issues. The remaining passengers could be treated at the airport.
This incident happened due to a “technical problem”
Here’s the really strange part of this story. Everything about this sounds like what you’d expect in a situation where a flight encounters severe turbulence. However, that’s reportedly not what happened. An airline spokesperson has said that the sudden movement of the aircraft was caused by a “technical problem.”
Furthermore, a passenger reports speaking to one of the pilots onboard, who relayed to him that “my gauges just blanked out, I lost all of my ability to fly the plane.” Now, I’d be hesitant to trust one random passenger’s account of what the pilot said, but the airline has confirmed the incident happened due to a technical problem, rather than turbulence, so…
Looking at Flightradar24 data for this flight, you oddly don’t notice any particularly large fluctuations in the speed or altitude, unless I’m missing something.
Bottom line
Passengers on today’s LATAM Boeing 787 flight from Sydney to Auckland had quite the dramatic journey, as the plane reportedly dropped suddenly, leading to dozens of injuries. The incident wasn’t due to turbulence, though, but instead the airline states that it was due to a technical problem. I’m curious to see what an investigation determines…
What do you make of this LATAM Boeing 787 incident?
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