A passenger has told NBC News of the dramatic incident that saw people aboard a Boeing flight thrown into the ceiling, as authorities probed what caused the plane’s sudden mid-air plunge.
More than a dozen people were rushed to the hospital on Monday and at least 50 injured after a LATAM airlines flight traveling from Sydney, Australia to Auckland, New Zealand experienced a “strong shake,” officials said.
Authorities in New Zealand said Tuesday they were seizing the black boxes from the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, which had been due to continue on to Santiago, Chile.
“Everything was going well,” said passenger Brian Jokat, who was sitting in a window seat as the flight headed toward New Zealand. “Then all of a sudden, the plane took a nosedive down.”
“People were flying out of their seats, hitting the roof, being thrown back four or five aisles back,” Jokat, 61, said in a telephone interview.
Jokat said that while he had his seatbelt on, the passenger in the aisle seat of his row didn’t.
“I saw him lying on the ceiling looking down at me,” he said. “He was fully out-stretched,” Jokat said. “And then bang, I looked behind and everyone was falling off the ceilings,” he added.
Jokat said the seatbelt, which he rarely wears during cruising altitude, saved him from the injuries.
“But those days are over. I will always keep my seatbelt on,” he said. “Because what I saw in that plane was people flying like ragdolls.”
LATAM Airlines Flight LA800 was carrying 263 passengers along with 9 crew members, the Santiago-based airline said in a statement Tuesday. The flight landed at its scheduled time of 4:26 p.m. Monday (11:26 p.m. Sunday ET) in Auckland after its 2-hour, 42-minute flight.
The plane “experienced a strong shake whose causes are being investigated,” the airline said.
Emergency services treated about 50 patients, 12 of whom were taken to the hospital, New Zealand’s emergency medical service provider Hato Hone St John Ambulance, said in a statement Monday.
The airline said most of those were discharged shortly after and that only two people needed medical attention “but without any life-threatening risks.”
The aircraft’s pilot told the passengers the flight had suffered equipment failure for a few seconds, causing the plane to drop for almost 500 feet in the air, Jokat said. “He said my gauges went down, everything went down for one or two seconds and they just lit up again and continued to function,” Jokat added.
“Some people broke right through the ceiling. So you can see all the wires inside,” Jokat said.
New Zealand’s Transport Accident Investigation Commission is investigating the accident, saying in a statement Tuesday that it was “seizing the cockpit voice and flight data recorders.”
Chile has appointed a representative to participate in the investigation, the Chilean aviation authority said Monday in a post on X.
Boeing said in a statement Monday that it was gathering more information and “will provide any support needed by our customer.”
The plane manufacturer has been under fire for multiple safety incidents and technical snags in recent months.
Most notably, the door panel of an Alaska airlines flight blew out midair over Portland, Oregon on Jan. 5, prompting a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice.
Last week, a tire came off a United Airlines flight shortly after taking off from San Francisco, hitting cars parked near the airport.
A Boeing 737-900 plane flown by United Airlines made an emergency landing in Texas after bright orange flames were seen shooting out of the plane’s engine.
And an investigation is underway after another Boeing-made plane flown by United suffered “stuck” rudder pedals at Newark Airport in New Jersey last month.
