Twelve passengers on a LATAM plane end up hospitalized after a “technical incident” while flying from Sydney to Chile

Twelve passengers on one flight the LATAM company from Sydney were hospitalized in New Zealand on Monday after their plane, bound for Chile via Auckland, crashed will record “a technical incident” which caused a strong tremor and pushed people towards the roof.

At least a passenger is seriousThis was reported by the New Zealand emergency services, which have revised the number of hospitalized patients downwards, from 13 to 12.

The passengers explained to the local press that the device, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner according to the airline, it rapidly lost altitude while flying over the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand He pushed all the people who were not wearing seatbelts onto the roof.

“People flew away because they didn’t have seatbelts” one passenger told public radio RNZ. “Some people They were pretty hurt. “People were really afraid,” this man said, his voice shaking.

Flight LA800 “had a technical accident during the journey caused a strong movement“a spokesperson for Chile-based LATAM said, without providing further details.

The plane, bound for Santiago, landed “as scheduled at Auckland Airport”, he added. The spokesperson deeply regretted “the inconvenience caused by this situation”.

Rescue services said they were alerted around 4pm local time (midnight in Argentina), when the plane began its descent towards Auckland Airport, New Zealand’s largest city.

A dozen ambulances and other medical vehicles were deployed to treat the injured.

“Our ambulance crews assessed the conditions of around 50 patients, one of whom was in a serious condition,” Gerard Campbell, of St John’s emergency services, told AFP.

“Twelve patients were transported to hospital,” he added. In a previous statement you had spoken of 13 injured.

At least three of them were part of the crew.

What happened on board the LATAM flight?

Brian Jokat, who was aboard the plane, said he saw another passenger hit the roof of the plane before falling and breaking his ribs on an armrest.

“He was against the roof of the plane, on his back, with his head towards me looking at me. It was like ‘The Exorcist’,” Jokat told RNZ, referring to a remembered scene from director William’s 1973 horror film Friedkin.

Jokat added that once the plane landed, the pilot went to the rear of the plane. “I asked him ‘what happened?’ and I said “I lost my gear briefly and then suddenly it came back.”

In some videos broadcast on the NZ Herald page, sees several crew members and passengers tending to an injured woman on the ground of the device, while a message in Spanish is heard from the speakers asking if there is a doctor on board.

This accident comes two months after another model from the American manufacturer Boeing will log a problem.

At the beginning of January, a door of a Boeing 737 MAX 9, of the Alaska Airlines company, broke off shortly after take-off. There were several minor injuries.

In Santiago, the Chilean Directorate General of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC) reported the accident “will be investigated by the New Zealand Accident Investigation Commission.”

Chile, in turn, “will appoint an accredited representative in that country to participate in the investigation,” the institution added in a brief statement.

Recently, THE 737 MAXIMUM of the American manufacturer were immobilized for almost two years after two accidents of two of its devices: the first, at the end of 2018, from the Indonesian company Lion Air, and the second, at the beginning of 2019, from the Ethiopian company Tyrolian Airlines, in which more than 350 people died.

In both cases, the cause of the accidents was a problem related to a new program.