A very rocky flight resulted in several injuries over the Pacific Ocean on December 18.
A video taken in the cabin went viral on social media showing what passengers experienced on a Hawaiian Airlines flight from Phoenix to Hawaii that was rocked by severe turbulence on Sunday morning, about a half an hour from Honolulu, while over the ocean.
Thirty-six people on the flight to Honolulu were injured when the plane experienced “severe turbulence,” with 11 of the injuries being considered serious.
Honolulu Emergency Medical Services confirmed that 20 passengers were transported to two local hospitals after the flight landed.
Jim Ireland, the Director of the Honolulu Emergency Services Department, gave a press conference and said that one passenger was knocked unconscious, and that about ten people experienced vomiting and nausea.
The 20 hospitalized passengers included 17 passengers, one of whom was a seriously injured baby, and three crew members. According to the airline, the flight was carrying 288 people – 278 were passengers, and 10 were members of the flight crew, including two pilots and eight flight attendants.
One passenger told the media about her terrifying experience. Tiffany Reyes said she went to the bathroom, and when she returned to her seat, the plane started shaking and dipping. She was just about to buckle her safety belt when the airplane suddenly plunged, and she woke up on the floor in the aisle.
When she got up after briefly blacking out, she asked passengers around her what had happened, and they told her that she had been thrown up to the ceiling and then thumped down onto the floor. Reyes crawled back to her seat and joined her daughter, who was buckled up and was safe.
Reyes said it was the most frightening experience of her life.
“It was just rocky. And then, it quickly just escalated to, like, the point where we’re shaking so much that we were, like, pretty much like floating off of our chairs,” passenger Jacie Hayata Ano told a media source.
Reyes was taken to the hospital after the plane landed, and she underwent various tests, including X-rays and a blood test. She was in the emergency room for five hours before being released.
Jon Snook, Hawaiian Airlines’ Chief Operating Officer, spoke at a press conference Sunday afternoon. He said the incident was unusual for the airline and that the aircraft had sustained some internal damage during the turbulence. He said the seatbelt sign was on during the turbulence, but some passengers were not buckled up.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident.
A meteorologist who works with the National Weather Service in Honolulu said the agency had issued a weather advisory for thunderstorms in Oahu, Hawaii, and various areas that could have been in the flight path.
Hawaii Airlines’ Snook said that the airline was aware of the advisory and the unstable weather conditions, but that the pilots had received no warning that the particular area where the turbulence happened was dangerous.
According to Snook, the NTSB will investigate how much altitude the plane lost during the turbulence, obtaining information from the flight recorder. The aircraft will undergo maintenance and inspections on the damaged areas in the cabin.