Dozens of passengers aboard an Aerolíneas Argentinas flight from Spain to Buenos Aires were injured after it spun around the cabin during severe turbulence, including a woman who broke her nose when she hit the ceiling.
Flight AR1133, an Airbus A330 carrying 284 people, was about seven hours into its 12-hour flight from Madrid on Tuesday when all hell broke loose at 38,000 feet off the coast of Brazil. This was reported by the US Sun publication.
Most of the 271 passengers were asleep when the pandemonium broke out as the unfastened flew off with their belongings and anything unsafe.
The gruesome footage posted online shows a hallway and kitchen littered with trash and a woman sitting with a bandage on her bloody nose.
In a statement issued by the airline, it was stated that the cabin was damaged “as a result of the passengers’ heads colliding with the ceiling”. “Independent” reported on this.
The company said that 12 passengers were injured, nine of them were treated by the medical staff of the Buenos Aires airport, and the other three passengers were taken to the hospital.
He added that warnings of possible turbulence had been announced and seat belt signs had been activated – some passengers had ignored the warning.
Photos were posted on the Internet, and the hallway and kitchen were littered with trash.
The airline Aerolíneas Argentinas said that the cabin was damaged when the passengers’ heads collided with the ceiling.
“The passengers who were most at risk and had to be evacuated were not wearing their seat belts during the turbulence,” the news agency said in a statement.
But one passenger disputed the airline’s statement, insisting the seat belt signs were not deployed before the bone-rattling incident.
The airline said an announcement was made of possible turbulence and seat belt signs were activated.
One passenger insisted that the seat belt signs were not activated before the turbulence.
“We had been flying for about seven hours and almost all of us were asleep because at that time it would be almost 3 o’clock in Spain,” Adrián Torres told the Spanish-language El Pais, according to the Independent.
“The plane started to move a lot and I’m telling my colleagues, ‘there’s a lot of turbulence, shut down,'” he said. “I looked at the little sign to see if the seat belt light was on and it wasn’t, but I was going to put it on anyway.
“While I was looking for him, the plane caught the biggest turbulence, I don’t know how many meters, but it suddenly went down and we hit the ceiling,” he added.
On Twitter, the Spanish passenger described the last few hours of the flight as an “af-ing nightmare”.
“In the official statement, they say that the lights are on, this is a big lie. What a helplessness,” Torres wrote.
“The plane started to move a lot and I said to my colleagues, ‘there’s a lot of turbulence, fasten it,'” Adrián Torres told Spanish-language El Pais. but I was going to wear it anyway.
The airline said that 12 passengers were injured, nine of them were treated by the medical staff of the Buenos Aires airport.
“I have a small bruise, but another colleague was paralyzed for three minutes and another broke the septum of his nose,” he told El Pais. “No one fell asleep and it was another seven hours. I was afraid and had trouble with every little movement.”
The woman who injured her nose agreed with Torres’ version of events.
“I was one of the most affected and may have had a broken septum,” Esperanza Borrás said on Twitter.
“I hit my head on the ceiling and broke it [the ceiling panel]. Yes, I had my seat belt on at 7 o’clock and this is what happened when I took it off, but NO WARNING,” he added.
