Updated: 13 March 2024, 12:28 pm Pacific
A Boeing 787 Dreamliner traveling from Sydney, Australia, to Auckland, New Zealand, “dropped abruptly mid-flight” on Monday. According to the Washington Post, “those on board felt a sudden rollercoaster-like drop — as if the plane were taking a nosedive — before the plane quickly leveled.”
“FlightAware, an airline tracker, shows the aircraft losing altitude about two hours into the three-hour flight between the two cities,” according to the BBC. The Dreamliner dropped more than 300 feet.
News reports indicate that 50 people were injured. Ambulances took 10 passengers and three cabin crew to an Aukland hospital. The Hato Hone St. John ambulance service reported one person was in serious condition. There were 263 passengers on board plus nine flight and cabin crew.
“The plane, unannounced, just dropped. I mean it dropped unlike anything I’ve ever experienced on any kind of minor turbulence, and people were thrown out of their seats, hit the top of the roof of the plane, throwing down the aisles,” Canadian passenger Brian Jokat, 61, told the BBC, according to Reuters.
Jokat told the BBC that “people had hit the ceiling with such force ‘some of the roof panels were broken’ while others had been thrown down the aisles after the plane ‘dropped unlike anything’ he had ever experienced before.” Those thrown about were not wearing seatbelts. Jokat told the New Zealand Post:
Jokat said there was no turbulence after the incident, and once the plane landed the pilot came to the back of the plane in “shock”.
“I asked ‘what happened?’ and he said ‘my gauges just blanked out, I lost all of my ability to fly the plane’.”
The Wall Street Journal interviewed another passenger, Lucas Ellwood, who was engaged with his iPad as others finished lunch.
Around him, people were thrown upward and suspended on the ceiling. Panels on the roof were busted open. Ellwood, who was strapped in with his seat belt, saw his iPad hit the ceiling and hold there for a split second.A moment later, everything—and everyone—fell down.
The South American carrier, LATAM Airlines, landed in Auckland as scheduled. However, the flight did not continue on to Chile.
A trying week for Boeing
On March 4, an engine fire forced a Boeing 737 to make an emergency landing in Houston, Texas shortly after takeoff. United Airlines said the engine ingested some plastic bubble wrap that was on the airfield prior to departure.
Two days later, fumes in the cabin of a Boeing 737-800 forced an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon.
On Thursday, a tyre fell off a Boeing 777-200 after takeoff in San Francisco, destroying a car. The plane was bound for Japan but diverted to Los Angeles where it landed safely.
A day later, a Boeing 737 MAX rolled off the runway in Houston and got stuck in grass.
Header image: Sky KoreSCL, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Earlier reports on Boeing (reverse chronological order)
- Former Boeing quality control manager, whistleblower, found dead in South Carolina
- John Oliver on Boeing’s culture collapse: profits over safety post-McDonnell Douglas merger
- Should the Boeing deferred prosecution for 737 MAX 8 fatal crashes be rescinded?
- A Boeing 737 MAX 9 blew an escape hatch on Friday. Here’s how a once-great engineering company created deadly planes.
.
Talk to me: BlueSky | Facebook | Mastodon | Twitter
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com