Passengers on board a plane that crashed out of the sky, injuring 50 people, are furious at how they have been treated by the airline after being given a small meal as compensation.
Several emergency vehicles rushed to Auckland International Airport on Monday after a Latam Airlines flight from Sydney to Auckland lost altitude and threw passengers into the ceiling.
St John Ambulance treated the injured and transported 13 of them to hospital, while the remaining passengers were given a single McDonald’s cheeseburger while they waited to find out what would happen next.
The ‘traumatised’ travelers from flight LA800, a Boeing 787-9, were then not provided with another meal until Tuesday morning.
Thais Iwamoto, 26, from Sydney, said Latam’s lack of support and poor communication ‘is something I want to talk to them about because it’s not right. It’s just not fair.
After being tossed around the plane, with some passengers jumping from the ceiling, luggage compartment and seats, the plane was met by several emergency personnel and vehicles at Auckland International Airport. The Latam aircraft is pictured
Passenger Janet Baker prepares to check in at Auckland International Airport in New Zealand for a rescheduled Latam Airlines flight to Santiago, Chile on Tuesday, March 12, 2024
“Accidents happen, but the way they treat us, it’s not what it should be,” she added New Zealand Herald.
Brisbane woman Clara Azevedo, 28, who was also on the plane, said although she was not injured herself, she spent the night in a hospital translating for an elderly woman who broke two ribs and hurt her shoulder and did not speak English.
‘We are all traumatized and we had to find the strength to help people. But it’s not our responsibility, it’s Latam’s – but they haven’t done anything. It’s very frustrating,’ Ms Azevedo said.
Another Australian passenger, Jacob Thompson, 33, hit his head in what Latam called a ‘strong shake’ while his partner was ‘thrown down the aisle’.
‘We didn’t know if we were going to make it to land,’ he said, adding that what happened ‘didn’t feel like turbulence’, that he had never felt anything like it before.
The passengers who were not taken to hospital were transported to an Auckland hotel at 2am on Tuesday morning.
Breakfast there was the first meal they received since the cheeseburger at the airport.
Ms Azevedo and the injured woman, for whom she spent the night translating, will both catch the diverted flight to Santiago, Chile – flight LA800’s final destination – at 20.00 tonight.
She said she is ‘terrified’ and hopes to get something to help her sleep throughout the journey to South America.
The flight path of Latam Airlines’ LA800 Dreamliner service from Sydney to Auckland is pictured
As of Tuesday evening, four passengers are being treated at Middlemore Hospital with ‘significant’ injuries.
Latam said the injured passengers were from Brazil, France, Australia, Chile and New Zealand.
A spokesman said the airline was “working in coordination with the relevant authorities to support investigations into the incident” and that it had “provided affected passengers with food, accommodation and transport due to the flight cancellation”.
New Zealand’s Transport Accident Investigation Commission said Chile would be responsible for investigating the incident as it took place in international airspace.
A passenger on board flight LA800 is pictured being treated on the floor of the plane on Monday
