A video went viral on social media showing what passengers went through on a flight from Phoenix to Hawaii that was rocked by severe turbulence Sunday morning, December 18, about a half an hour from Honolulu, while over the Pacific Ocean.
Thirty-six people on the flight to Honolulu were injured when the plane experienced “severe turbulence,” with 11 passengers sustaining serious injuries.
Honolulu Emergency Medical Services confirmed that 20 passengers aboard the Hawaiian Airlines Flight were transported to two local hospitals after the flight landed. Nine of the 20 passengers had minor injuries, while 11 had serious injuries, including a baby.
Jim Ireland, the Director of the Honolulu Emergency Services Department, said at a news conference that one person was knocked unconscious, and that about ten passengers experienced vomiting and nausea.
The 20 hospitalized passengers included 17 passengers 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 shared her terrifying experience with the Associated Press. Tiffany Reyes told the media outlet that she went to the bathroom, and when she returned to her seat, all hell broke loose. She was just about to buckle her safety belt when the airplane suddenly dipped, and she found herself on the floor in the aisle.
When she got up after briefly blacking out, she asked people 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 reunited with her daughter, who was buckled up and had escaped injury.
Reyes said it was the most frightening experience that she had ever had in all of her 40 years.
“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.
After landing, Reyes was taken to the hospital, where she underwent various tests, including X-rays and a blood test. She was in the emergency room for five hours before being released.
Hawaiian Airlines Chief Operating Officer, Jon Snook, said the incident was very rare for the airline. At a press conference on Sunday afternoon, he said 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 announced that they are 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.
Snook said that the airline was aware of the advisory and the unstable weather conditions, but they 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, as the flight recorder would provide the Board with the details. The aircraft will undergo serious maintenance and inspections to fix the damaged areas in the cabin.
