At least 50 people were hurt when a Boeing 787 operated by LATAM Airlines dropped abruptly mid-flight from Sydney to Auckland on Monday, according to the airline and a New Zealand health service organisation that treated the injured.
The aircraft landed at Auckland airport as scheduled on Monday afternoon, according to FlightAware.
“LATAM Airlines Group reports that flight LA800, operating the Sydney-Auckland route today, had a technical event during the flight which caused a strong movement,” the carrier said.
One person is in a serious condition while the rest suffered mild-to-moderate injuries, a spokesperson for Hato Hone St John, which treated roughly 50 people at the airport, said.
“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,” passenger Brian Jokat told the BBC.
If people hit the ceiling, then the plane has to have moved down faster than the he people. Doesn’t that imply the plane moved downwards faster than gravity?
Yes, it’s the plane being accelerated in a downward direction by something. Most of the time that’s turbulence, but it appears there is more investigation ongoing here as the dip was much more severe than usual.
Turbulence can do funny shit with aerodynamic lift. However, I think most of the injuries are from people lightly hitting the ceiling from slight upward momentum (kind of like when your car goes over a big bump and you float up out of your seat) and then getting slammed to their seat when lift is very suddenly restored.
Yes
Yes it does. The fact that it moved faster than gravity is not special in and of itself - many things do that when acted upon by other forces (e.g. if you thrown a ball towards the ground, and in a similar case mentioned by another commenter). In the case of the plane though, the question is why? Was it a failure of the avionics package, erroneous input by the pilot, etc. Knowing the cause will help understand and mitigate the risks moving forward.
Sometimes, you see this phenomenon when throwing a frisbee. It can rapidly move up and down when it’s travelling a long distance due to physics and shit, probably something to do with hitting pockets of warmer and cooler air on the field. Planes can do that on a massive scale, and you better be buckled when it happens.