On Monday, July 1, 2024, an Air Europa Boeing 787-9 had to make an emergency landing due to turbulence in Brazil. Dozens of passengers were injured.
The scene of terror lasted for several minutes. Dozens of passengers were injured when they hit objects in the cabin of the plane, which was being tossed around by severe turbulence over South America.
Our colleagues of The Observer collected testimonies from several people on board this Boeing, which finally had to make an emergency landing in Brazil.
Panic scene
“The feeling was one of terror, the feeling that you were falling and it would never end,” explains one of them. Still shaken, he tells the feeling of falling felt on board: “And you are aware that you are falling at an incalculable speed.”
#ACCIDENT | At least 30 passengers were injured when Air Europa flight UX045, a Boeing 787-9 traveling from Madrid to Montevideo, encountered severe turbulence early this morning.
Following the incident, the flight was diverted to Natal, Brazil, where the injured… pic.twitter.com/ksXFTxB49d— Guayaquil Aviation (@AviacionGYE) https://twitter.com/AviacionGYE/status/1807795442870100061?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
It was thanks to the small screens placed at the back of the seats that he realized that the plane had finally stopped falling: “Until we started to see on the screen that the plane started to climb.”
Emergency landing
“There was very slight turbulence, we barely felt it, and from one moment to the next, the plane fell suddenly and we all got up. Those who didn’t have seatbelts flew up and some were stuck to the ceiling. This lasts about 3.5 seconds.”testifies another.
Air Europa Boeing 787-9 (EC-MTI, built 2018) safely diverted to Natal-Intl AP(SBSG), Brazil after flight #UX45 from Madrid to Montevideo, Uruguay encountered severe turbulence during cruise flight at 36000 ft. leaving at least 30 persons injured and aircraft interior damaged.… pic.twitter.com/d51i9HFRJu
— JACDEC (@JacdecNew) https://twitter.com/JacdecNew/status/1807796134909223362?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Then the passengers had to wait for endless minutes to find out what the plane was going to do: “The worst part was the torture of those 40 to 50 minutes to Natal, when we didn’t know what was going to happen.”
The Spanish company reported on the social network X that the device had “landed normally” in Natal (northeast) and that “the injured were taken care of”. We count “between 25 and 30 injured”, said a Uruguayan diplomatic source to the AFPspecifying that this assessment remained provisional and that some had already left the hospital where they had been taken.
