The LATAM Boeing 787 flying from Sydney to Auckland took a scary plunge after a flight attendant serving a cockpit meal accidentally pressed a switch on the pilot’s seat.
The inadvertent action set off a chain reaction that activated a motorized function that caused the pilot to jerk at the controls, sending the plane into a descent that some passengers describe as a scene from ‘The Exorcist’.
Boeing issued a memo Thursday night to operators of 787 jets urging them to inspect cockpit seats for loose covers on switches and provide instructions on how to disable the pilot’s seat engine if necessary.
“Closing the spring-loaded seatback switch shield on a loose/disassembled rocker switch cap could potentially jam the rocker switch, resulting in unintended seat movement,” the memo, obtained by The Wall Street Journal, states.
Boeing also mentioned that updates to flight crew manuals are being considered.
Passengers aboard a LATAM Airlines flight from Sydney, Australia to Auckland, New Zealand were thrown to the ceiling on Monday night amid ‘horrific’ turbulence.
Up to 50 passengers were injured in the chaotic scenes, with 10 hospitalized with head and neck injuries and broken bones
Latam, an airline based in Chile, has stated that the Dreamliner experienced an “in-flight technical incident which caused violent movements”, as indicated by preliminary evidence from an investigation.
This switch, which is supposed to be covered and not operated while a pilot is seated, led to an inadvertent activation of the control system.
A spokesperson for Latam said the company is cooperating with authorities in the ongoing investigation.
“We are in contact with our customer and Boeing stands ready to support exploration-related activities as requested,” Boeing said in a statement.
A terrified passenger on board a LATAM Airways Boeing jet described experiencing ‘the worst turbulence you could imagine’ after dozens were thrown from their seats mid-flight.
The pilot, Lucas Ellwood, said “everyone was terrified” aboard the flight from Sydney, Australia to Auckland, New Zealand on Monday, with the latest disaster involving Boeing sending at least 10 to hospital.
“There were people whining all over, there were people hurt all over,” he told Good Morning America. ‘Everybody just hit the roof, they fell to the ground.’
One passenger described enduring ‘the worst kind of turbulence you could imagine’, while others compared dozens of airfields around the cabin to scenes from The Exorcist
An ambulance leaves Auckland International Airport after a number of passengers were injured
Others compared the chaotic scenes to something out of ‘The Exorcist’ as reports suggest as many as 50 people were injured in the incident.
It is the latest in a series of plane and in-flight errors involving Boeing jets that have seen tens of billions wiped off the company’s market value after incidents such as an emergency door blowing off an Alaska Airlines jet in January.
Passengers reportedly suffered head and neck injuries as well as several broken bones, and the airliner said seven passengers and three cabin crew were hospitalized.
Although no one is believed to have been seriously injured, passengers described how the flight went from calm to panic in the blink of an eye.
Many had taken off their seat belts when the journey was calm before it suddenly dropped and shook with turbulence, sending many flying into the ceiling.
On January 5, an emergency hatch blew out of an Alaska Airlines jet at 16,000 feet, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon
Passengers had their phones and clothes ripped off by the force of the door blowout, with the incident sparking a lawsuit from the passengers while billions were wiped from Boeing’s market value
He said he had issues with how Boeing was handling its production of its 737s and 787s in particular, days after a door stopper blew out on a 737 blew out at 16,000 feet,
“It was like the worst kind of turbulence you could think of,” Ellwood said afterward.
Others described it as something out of a ‘horror movie’ and felt like a roller coaster that dropped without warning.
Despite the alarming incident, the Boeing 787-Dreamliner continued its journey as planned and landed in Auckland about 2 hours and 42 minutes after take-off.
This comes as the Boeing whistleblower, who was found dead on Saturday, had issued stark warnings about the aviation giant’s 787 Dreamliner and 737 Max models just weeks before his death.
John Barnett, 62, was found with a ‘self-inflicted’ gunshot wound in the parking lot of a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina.
Barnett was found dead inside his truck Saturday in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn in Charleston, pictured above
Barnett’s lawyer, Brian Knowles, told the BBC that Barnett had been at the center of a whistleblower case in Charleston related to the production of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
The suit alleged that vacuum workers knowingly fitted ‘substandard’ parts to Boeing 787s and that brass swept errors under the carpet to save money.
The FAA has since revealed that the company failed a whopping 33 out of 89 audits during an investigation into its 737 Max production.
In January, Barnett appeared on TMZ to give his take on a technical glitch that saw a door fly off its hinges on a 737 — a model he said had been affected by recent shifts in strategy along with the 787.