New Boeing problems: At least 50 injured on flight to New Zealand

The problems at aircraft manufacturer Boeing don’t seem to be going away: at least 50 people were injured on a Dreamliner scheduled flight to New Zealand. There is talk of turbulence due to “technical problems”.

At least 50 people have been injured in an incident on a flight between Sydney, Australia and the New Zealand city of Auckland. A “technical problem” caused severe turbulence on board the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, reported the broadcaster Radio New Zealand (RNZ), citing the Chilean airline LATAM. The LATAM plane was able to land in Auckland as scheduled in the late afternoon (local time).

One person was seriously injured in the incident, and at least 50 passengers, including several crew members, escaped with minor injuries. Several people were taken to hospitals. The rescue workers were on duty with five ambulances immediately after landing, as the St. John Ambulance rescue service announced.

“People were flying through the cabin,” RNZ quoted a passenger on the flight as saying, who was uninjured. Most of those affected were not wearing their seat belts at the time of the incident. The plane was actually supposed to fly on to Santiago de Chile in the evening. However, the flight was initially canceled and postponed to Tuesday. What exactly triggered the incident is still unclear.

At Boeing, the defects are piling up

For some time now there have been increasing problems with aircraft manufactured by Boeing. In January, in an incident involving a virtually new Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-8 Max, part of the fuselage broke off shortly after takeoff. The more than 170 people on board largely escaped horror. As it became known over the weekend, the US Department of Justice is now investigating the case.

Last week, a United Airlines Boeing 777 lost a wheel while taking off from San Francisco. It had previously become known that the US aviation regulator FAA had found quality control problems in Boeing production.