A LATAM Airlines flight from Sydney to Auckland experienced a sudden loss of altitude, resulting in approximately 50 passengers and crew members being injured, with one in serious condition.
The drama happened about an hour before the flight was due to land at Auckland International Airport. According to a report in legacy media outlet NZ Herald it was caused by a technical issue that led to ‘strong movement’ onboard, throwing passengers and crew into the ceiling of the aircraft.
Emergency services on the ground responded swiftly after landing with fourteen units of St John treating the injured at the scene. Patients were transported to various hospitals for treatment.
There was confusion during the ordeal, as no immediate explanation was provided by the flight crew. However, a Latam Airlines spokesperson assured that the crew members hospitalised had no serious injuries.
Additional accounts from passengers highlighted the severity and suddenness of the incident with some comparing it to a rollercoaster drop.
The pilot reportedly lost instrumentation briefly, leading to the altitude loss.
The airline has rescheduled a connecting flight and is providing affected passengers with accommodations and support.
Aviation expert Peter Clark told State media outlet RNZ that the flight radar showed the plane was cruising at 41,000 feet and at 15.27pm on Monday it dropped to 40,692ft. He said it was too early to tell what caused the Boeing 787 Dreamliner to drop suddenly.
Air New Zealand and Qantas also fly Boeing 787 Dreamliners and a thorough investigation was needed, Clark said, but doubted other 787 needed to be grounded. He said the same thing had happened to a Qantas Airbus flying on Australia’s east coast.
Image credit: Lukas Souza
‘…the same thing happened to a Qantas flight on the east coast..’
WHEN???
Was it at the same time?
Drones are easily hacked (ie the Reaper, the size of a 737…) and contain the same as well as some modified flight management software, and is linked into ‘fly by wire’…
Did the pilots at least pull the circuit breakers to the autopilot and hand-fly the aircraft to Auckland???
‘The Pilot lost instrumentation briefly..’ indicates a hacking attack, an EMP, or a space-based jamming signal. There could even be a virus in the system that caused bad data between the three Flight management computers.
I don’t like Flight Management Systems, as these can lock you out of manual flight control inputs.
I don’t like ‘fly-by-wire’ either, as stray signals / modified wavelengths can have uncommanded effects on aircraft systems, especially primary and secondary flight controls.
I’ll stick with limited cables & pulleys, along with pushrods, bellcranks, and cable tension regulators (not effected by electronic hacking…!).
Boeing needs to re-design the 737-800 nacelles, drop the electronic software minus the Garmin screens, and begin work to design a centerline-thrust aircraft with the turbofan engines mounted on the real fuselage like the DC-9 and MD-80 which allows for a ‘clean wing’, and no boundary layer disruptions.
But, since I’m not a Quiet Birdman, a Flying Shriner, or part of the Order of the Daedalus, and am not ‘enlightened’ by the woke Universities or Service Academies, I won’t be going anywhere…
Phone calls and blacklisting have insured that!!!
Usually don’t hear about mishaps unless people are injured (nowadays).
In addition to that, nothing is ever done to correct life-threatening problems until people en-masse are killed on board.
The FAA and CAA’s in the Commonwealth Nations are very slow to move in getting known technical faults sorted, but they DO have time to review GoPro videos and issue citations and in some cases have revoked Pilot Certificates (FAA) and Licences (CAA).
A Boeing whistleblower who was in court giving evidence against Boeing has now turned-up dead a few hours ago. The case against Boeing is ongoing…
Boeing should actually bring back the 727 with only two GE CFM-6 engines, and the middle engine space used for an APU installation. BUT-
That will never happen…just like the abolishment of the Flight Engineer, who can effect repairs in flight if needed, and can get out of the seat to inspect and check for certain problems.
A Flight Management system of linked redundant computers system can’t do that…!
Loss of instrumentation and drop in altitude. My guess would be a power bus failure that caused avionics displays and one or more of the FCS computers (or power to the sensors) or air data computer to drop out. It actually sounds rather serious to me. A power bus failure would cause failure of more than one system at a time and lead to massive pilot workload as they try to figure out what is wrong.
Exactly. That’s why Flight Engineers need to return to the cockpits.
Many F/E’s are pilots as well, so it’s a win-win situation.
The cost of paying for another crew member in the cockpit, and the weight of the F/E in terms of fuel consumption per hour certainly outweighs the cost of injury pay-outs and damage to aircraft as a result of NOT having an F/E onboard.
FCS, FMC’s and ADC’s enter into a redundant check/re-check cycle when things go wrong, and end-up in a closed cycle of trying to analyze the problems, repeating the processes with no end result.
The massive pilot workload you mention was verified on the A-380 that had the engine explosion shortly after take-off out of *Singapore? (*memory??). The Co-Pilot / First Officer had a laptop plugged into the data system, and could not keep up with all of the malfunctions.
Eventually, the Qantas Captain made the decision to ‘go back to the basics’ and decided to disregard the laptop data, and hand-flew the aircraft back to the point of origin.
Stray voltage can also set-up an electromagnetic field in and around appliances that are not properly grounded.
When I flew C-130’s, we had a problem with stray voltage roaming around in the autopilot, which caused the elevator trim tabs to move un-commanded. Despite having a DC-powered trim tab over-ride switch on the pedestal, the input continued.
A fast-thinking Flight Engineer pulled the autopilot circuit breakers, and that stopped the 80 degree nosedive towards the ground. He got his cue from the autopilot servo indicators w/ pitch being ‘stuck down’.
Had this happened on an approach to land, you would not be reading this…
We also had problems with the Essential AC Bus at FS 245 that effected a number of systems IF one of the 7 circuit breakers popped. That was resolved with awareness training, and an inspection window installed at the access panel.
The circuit breakers were upgraded, and became a time-change item every 2,000 flight hours. A :10 minute job that save lives in the end.
This happened to me once. Fortunately I had my belt on but the air hostesses took a bit of a shake and the trolley nearly hit the ceiling. It was a United airlines flight back in the 1990s. Everyone was OK but man you could see how people could get head injuries or spinal injuries.
Scary stuff and probably contributed to my fear of flying. Was fine before that incident.