‘We thought we were going to die’: Air Europa flight hits ‘strong turbulence’; 30 passengers injured

Thirty passengers on a flight between Madrid and Uruguay were injured when the plane hit what was described as “strong turbulence.”

The passengers were en route to Montevideo but had to be diverted to Brazil’s Natal airport, Air Europa said on the social media platform X.

The company said the plane landed normally, but with injured passengers who needed treatment.

One passenger told Teledoce that the plane dropped 400 meters, or about 1,312 feet, while going 1,000 kilometers per hour or 621 miles per hour, CNN reported.

Evangelina Saravia told the Uruguayan news outlet that some passengers did not have their seatbelts on, ignoring the warnings.

“People were thrown from the seats and hit the roof, that’s why the roof broke,” Saravia said according to CNN.

“From one moment to the next, the plane destabilized and went into a dive,” a passenger identified as Maximiliano said, according to Reuters. “The people who didn’t have seat belts went up in the air and hit the ceiling, and they got hurt - those who had seat belts on, not so much.”

“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,” a passenger named Stevan told Reuters.

One person was seen on a video being pulled from an overhead luggage bin, NBC News reported.

While more than 30 passengers were injured, only five remained hospitalized, The New York Times reported. Four are in intensive care.

The newspaper reported some passengers had neck or skull fractures.

The plane is being examined to see how bad the damage to the aircraft was, Reuters reported.

Some passengers were taken by bus from Natal airport to a larger one to continue their trip to Uruguay.

There have been several incidents of turbulence injuring passengers over the past year.

A dozen people were hurt in May on a Qatar Airlines flight to Ireland.

One person was killed when a Singapore Airlines flight hit severe turbulence earlier in May.

Still, it is relatively rare to be injured during turbulence. The New York Times said there were only 163 severe injuries between 2009 and 2022.

© 2024 Cox Media Group