At least 50 hurt as LATAM's Boeing 787 to Auckland 'just dropped' mid-flight (www.reuters.com)

submitted 7 months ago by naturalgasbad@lemmy.ca to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] zaphod@lemmy.ca 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

All that says is they're investigating.

At this time, unless something new comes to light, there's little reason to believe it's anything but an unusual episode of turbulence.

Edit: and according to a different article, there is at least one passenger who claims the pilot said their controls "blanked out" which would qualify as "something new".

[-] livus@kbin.social 3 points 7 months ago

The part I'm disagreeing with is your idea that this should be written off as something that just happens. Authorities don't appear to share your view.

Normally pilots warn crew and passengers when approaching possible turbulence. In this case the crew got hurt.

Random turbulence that maims the flight crew just wouldn't be practical as a "thing that just happens" on regular longhaul flights.

There's an outside chance it's a freak accident, but it's far more likely that it's some kind of malfunction (of pilot or more likely of the plane).

[-] zaphod@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Random turbulence that maims the flight crew just wouldn't be practical as a "thing that just happens" on regular longhaul flights.

I never said it happens often but it absolutely does happen. Here was a particularly spectacular example that happened to folks a few years back on their way to Australia (and note, if you want more examples, the article lists a couple of other past incidents that also resulted in crew and passenger injuries):

https://apnews.com/article/49db2788d04d4e11bcbb1a63dbae4199

Passengers on a flight from Canada to Australia said they had no warning about turbulence that suddenly slammed people into the ceiling of the plane and injured more than three dozen — a phenomenon that experts say can be nearly impossible for pilots to see coming.

One passenger on that flight noted:

“The plane just dropped,” passenger Stephanie Beam said. “When we hit turbulence, I woke up and looked over to make sure my kids were buckled. The next thing I knew there’s just literally bodies on the ceiling of the plane.”

So again, I cannot emphasize this enough: wear your damn seatbelts, people.