A dozen passengers aboard an Aerolíneas Argentinas flight from Spain to Buenos Aires were injured after getting tossed around the cabin during severe turbulence — including a woman who apparently broke her nose when she banged into the ceiling.
Flight AR1133, an Airbus A330 carrying 284 people, was about seven hours into the 12-flight from Madrid on Tuesday when all hell broke loose at 38,000 feet off the coast of Brazil, the US Sun reported.
Most of the 271 passengers had been sleeping when the pandemonium erupted, as those unbuckled went flying along with their belongings and everything else that was not secured.
Wild images posted online show the aisle and galley littered with debris and a woman sitting with a bandage on her bloodied nose.
In a statement, the airline said the cabin had sustained damage “due to the collision of the passengers’ heads with the ceiling,” the Independent reported.
The company said 12 passengers were hurt, nine of whom were treated by airport medical personnel in Buenos Aires, while three others were transferred to a hospital.
It added that an announcement had been made about possible turbulence and that seat belt signs had been turned on — claiming some passengers ignored the warning.
“The passengers who were the most compromised and who were the ones who had to be transferred did not have their seat belts on at the time of the turbulence,” according to the statement cited by the news outlet.
But one passenger disputed the airline’s statement and insisted the seat belt signs were not turned on before the bone-rattling incident.
“We had been flying for about seven hours and we were almost all asleep because at that time in Spain it would be close to 3,” Adrián Torres told Spanish-language El Pais, according to the Independent.
“The plane began to move a lot and I tell my colleagues, ‘There’s a lot of turbulence, buckle up,’” he said. “I looked at the little sign to see if the light to fasten the seat belt was on and I see that it is not, but I was going to put it on anyway.“While I was looking for it, the plane caught the biggest turbulence, I don’t know how many meters but it suddenly went down and we shot towards the ceiling,” he added.
On Twitter, the Spanish passenger described the last few hours of the flight as “a f—ing nightmare.”
“In the official statement they say that the lights were on, this is a huge lie. What helplessness,” Torres wrote.
“I have a small bruise, but another colleague was paralyzed for three minutes and another broke the septum of her nose,” he told El Pais. “Nobody went back to sleep and that there were another seven hours left. I was scared and I had a hard time with every slight movement.”
The woman who injured her nose agreed with Torres’ version of events.
“I have been one of the most affected and possibly have a broken septum,” Esperanza Borrás wrote on Twitter.
“I hit my head on the ceiling and broke it [the ceiling panel]. Yes, I had my belt on at 7 o’clock and just when I took it off it happened, but THERE WAS NO NOTICE,” she added.
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