Passengers were thrown towards the ceiling and several were hospitalised after the plane came to a halt.

Imagine the panic. A Latam Chilean airliner suffered a technical incident on Monday evening that was as brief as it was terrifying. While flying over the Tasman Sea (Australia), the Boeing 787 Dreamliner lost altitude violently in mid-flight, injuring several passengers. All those not wearing seatbelts were thrown to the ceiling. “It only lasted a split second. The people thrown to the ceiling damaged the wall,” testified Lucas, a passenger upon arrival in Auckland (New Zealand). “The guy behind me was in the toilet when it happened, poor guy. He told me he went through the ceiling.” The civil aviation authorities began investigating the “technical incident” on Tuesday.

Health authorities said about 50 patients were treated after landing in Auckland and four people remained in hospital as of Tuesday morning.

Boeing doubles hiccups

The incident comes after a series of Boeing malfunctions. In early January, a door on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 broke off minutes after takeoff, causing minor injuries. The 737 MAX has been grounded for nearly two years after two crashes, one involving Indonesia’s Lion Air in late 2018 and another involving Ethiopian Airlines in early 2019, killed more than 350 people. In both cases, a problem with the new software was the cause of the crashes.

Last week, a Boeing 777 was forced to make an emergency landing shortly after takeoff from San Francisco after a wheel came loose before it crashed into cars in the airport parking lot.