The turbulence came out of nowhere. “It was very, very quiet; nothing happened,” a passenger told Australia’s The Sydney Morning Herald. “And then, quite unexpectedly and suddenly, we started shaking a little. The shaking became more and more bumpy until the machine suddenly sagged.”
The incident happened on a Hawaiian Airlines flight last week. The machine was en route from Honolulu to Sydney on Thursday with 163 passengers and 12 crew members on board – a more than ten-hour flight across the Pacific Ocean. After around five hours of flight time, the unexpected turbulence occurred. “The plane just went down,” a passenger told ABC News. “We weren’t prepared for it.”
Several unbelted occupants hit the ceiling with their heads. The flight captain then informed the passengers that further turbulence was to be expected and that they should only move in the cabin if absolutely necessary. One passenger described the atmosphere on board as “a bit chaotic” after the incident. Some passengers cried and screamed in shock. A doctor who was on the flight helped crew members tend to the injured. Several people, including one crew member, were given ice packs for their heads.
As the news agency “Associated Press” reports, seven passengers were examined by the airport’s paramedics after landing. A passenger and three flight attendants were taken to hospitals for evaluation. The flight attendants have since been fired, the airline said on Monday, but added that it was still awaiting comment from the passenger.
In December, a Hawaiian Airlines flight from Phoenix to Honolulu suddenly experienced severe turbulence. 36 people on board were injured, eleven of them seriously. The aircraft also sustained minor damage. Airline boss Jon Snook said at the time that such turbulence was unusual and the airline had not experienced anything like it in the recent past.
Watch the video: Shock at 11,000 meters: A flight with more than 200 passengers on board is rocked by turbulence over the Pacific. Dozens of people are injured.
Quellen: Associated Press, “The Sydney Morning Herald”, ABC News
