Thirty passengers were injured after a flight from Madrid to Uruguay was hit by “strong turbulence” and had to make an emergency landing in Brazil, Spanish airline Air Europa said on Monday.
“Our flight UX045 bound for Montevideo has been diverted to the Natal airport (in Brazil) due to strong turbulence,” Air Europa said in a post on X.
“The plane has landed normally and those who sustained different types of injuries are already being treated.”
The aircraft hit by turbulence was a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. The plane has the capacity to hold up to 339 passengers, according to Air Europa’s website.
One of the passengers, Evangelina Saravia, told the Uruguayan news outlet Teledoce that there had been about 20 minutes of mild turbulence before the plane suddenly dropped 400 meters at a speed of 1,000 kilometers per hour – catching some passengers, who had ignored the seatbelt warnings, off guard.
“(Before the drop) there were people walking, people without belts. There were children sleeping without belts,” Saravia said. “People were thrown from the seats and hit the ceiling, that’s why the ceiling broke,” she added.
Another passenger, Daniel Montañez, told CNN he and his wife had been sleeping with their seat belts on when the turbulence hit and awoke to see some of their fellow passengers hitting the ceiling of the cabin and falling back down.
“People who did not have their seat belts unfortunately suffered consequences, injuries,” he said. “There were people broken, people on the floor, people screaming, people who felt bad, people bleeding … A rather chaotic image. As you can imagine, the nerves at that point start to play after you come to your senses about what happened, because at that moment you don’t really notice anything, only movements and madness.”
Another passenger, Stevan, told Reuters: “There are passengers with fractures and injuries to their arms, faces, and legs. There are about 30 people injured. It was a pretty horrible feeling; we thought we were going to die there, but thank God it didn’t happen.”
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