Passengers on flight to Auckland describe ‘mid-air drop’ with people thrown from their seats

Fifty people have been treated by ambulance crews and 13 people are in hospital after an in-bound aircraft to Auckland experienced a “strong movement” mid-flight that reportedly saw passengers suddenly thrown about the plane.

In a statement, Hato Hone St John Ambulance said the organisation responded to an incident at Auckland International airport involving an inbound aircraft after a call at 3.58pm local time on Monday.

Five ambulances, a major incident support team vehicle, two rapid response vehicles and a number of senior personnel were dispatched to treat passengers who had been injured on the flight.

  • catloaf@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    What kind of “technical problem” could cause such a sudden drop? I know a sudden change in air could, but that’s not a technical problem.

    • Pretzilla@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      The flight controls are well capable of sending the plane on a negative G roller coaster. But usually there are measures in place to prevent that

      Or could be a gremlin on the wing and no one belives William Shatner

        • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Interesting. My milkman was called Davey Calhoun when I was a kid. We called him Davey the Crow because he was a bin-raking smelly bastard

          This was in the Scottish Highlands in the 1970s, do you think it’s the same guy?

    • Mint_Raccoon@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      It might be something like Qantas 72 where a fault in a component that supplies vital data to the flight computer caused two uncontrolled drops which resulted in over 100 people getting injured.

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        A dive I can understand, but is there a difference between a dive and a drop? As a layman, I imagine when they say it dropped, they mean they lost altitude without pitching down (though obviously they’d pitch down naturally to regain airspeed).