What happened on LATAM flight LA800?
An aviation commentator says he still has “every confidence” in the Boeing 787 despite 50 people being injured when a LATAM flight from Sydney to Auckland rapidly lost altitude.
The flight went from cruising at 41,000 feet before it suddenly dropped to 40,692 ft about 55 minutes before landing on Monday.
Aviation commentator Peter Clark told Stuff Travel it was the rate of descent that caused people to “become a projectile” not how far the plane dropped.
He believed there was “a nose down attitude and then it flattened out very quickly and climbed back to altitude.”
“Initial thought was, was it turbulence but everyone on board the aircraft has basically said that this was not turbulence. It was a normal flight with no movement in the aircraft for the whole flight.
“Other things that possibly play into this is, was there a software problem on board? Was there a sudden adjustment by the flight crew, because this plane was in a normal flying attitude.”
Clark said the incident does not make the Boeing 787-9 or 787-8 any more unsafe compared to any other aircraft.
“It's still a very good aircraft. It's well proven. There are so many flying in the sky now. It's the new generation aircraft and I have every confidence in the aircraft, but we need to wait and see what caused this. Was there a software glitch or mechanical glitch?
“I've never heard this before on a Boeing 787 fleet of aircraft. So let's hope it's just a one off and we can find out what it is and hopefully always from these things we can learn.”
He said one thing can be learnt immediately, keep your seatbelt fastened when in your seat.
Passenger Brian Jokat told Stuff he woke up and the person in the seat next to him was on the ceiling of the plane.
“His back is on the ceiling and he’s up in the air and then he drops down and hits his head on the armrest. The whole plane is screaming.
“The plane then started taking a nose dive and I was just thinking ‘OK this is it, we’re done’.”
Another passenger, Jacinto, said some people who weren’t wearing seatbelts “flew through the cabin” and others “hit the roof”.
“One of the crew members got hit really badly on his head. He was sitting right behind me because there was an empty seat and they were asking us to not let him fall asleep,” he said.
Jokat said when he looked over his shoulder he saw people in the aisles lying down.
“There was no lean-in for a ‘strap in ladies and gentlemen’ this was just whack out of nowhere.
“The ceiling’s broken from people’s heads and bodies hitting it. Basically neck braces were being put on people, guys' heads were cut and they were bleeding. It was just crazy.”
10 passengers from five different countries were taken to hospital with injuries, LATAM said.
Two were from Brazil, four from Australia, two New Zealanders and one each from France and Chile.
Three cabin crew members were also taken to hospital.
One passenger and one cabin crew member “required additional attention”, but didn't have life-threatening injuries, the airline said.
Jokat said there was no turbulence after the incident and once the plane landed the pilot came to the back of the plane in “shock”.
“I asked ‘what happened?’ and he said ‘my gauges just blanked out, I lost all of my ability to fly the plane’.”
Aviation expert Irene King said she was concerned to hear reports of the pilot saying he temporarily lost instrumentation.
King said that kind of issue would be something that regulators across the globe would be interested in.
“These aircrafts just don't fail. They have fail safe systems in them. Maybe the've had a momentary glitch with their systems.”
The plane would have to stay grounded while a thorough investigation happened, King said.
She was interested in which authority took over the investigation, as that, to her, would indicate how serious the incident was.
Clark said Boeing would “definitely” be involved in any investigation.
“I would presume that the data box, the flight data recorder will be pulled from the aircraft or downloaded from the aircraft. So they can look at the data parameters of the flight as well as the voice recorder, if that has not been overwritten already,” he said.
In a statement from the Chilean accident investigation authority (DGAC) it said it would send a Chilean delegate to New Zealand to assist in the investigation of the LATAM flight.
The DGAC said New Zealand would lead the investigation.