Passengers on board a plane that plunged out of the sky injuring 50 people are furious at how they’ve been treated by the airline, after being gifted a tiny meal in compensation.
Multiple emergency vehicles rushed to Auckland International Airport on Monday, after a Latam Airlines flight from Sydney to Auckland lost altitude throwing passengers into the ceiling.
St John ambulance treated the wounded and transported 13 of them to hospital, while the remaining passengers were given a single McDonald’s cheeseburger as they waited to find out what would happen next.
The ‘traumatised’ travellers from flight LA800, a Boeing 787-9, were then not provided with another meal until Tuesday morning.
Thais Iwamoto, 26, from Sydney, said Latam’s lack of support and poor communications ‘is something I want to talk to them about because it’s not OK. It’s just not fair.
After being thrown around the plane, with some passengers bouncing off the ceiling, luggage compartments and seats, the flight was met by multiple emergency personnel and vehicles at Auckland International Airport. The Latam plane is pictured
Passenger Janet Baker prepares to check in at Auckland International Airport in New Zealand for a rescheduled Latam Airlines flight to Santiago, Chile on Tuesday, March 12, 2024
READ MORE: Terrifying moment flight LA800 nose-dives leaving up to 50 passengers injured when they were ‘thrown into ceiling’
St John ambulance (pictured) crews treated 50 people at the scene
‘Accidents happen, but the way they treat us, that’s not what it’s supposed to be, she told the New Zealand Herald.
Brisbane woman Clara Azevedo, 28, who was also on the flight, said though she was not injured herself, she spent all night at a hospital translating for an elderly woman who broke two ribs and injured her shoulder and spoke no English.
‘We are all traumatised, and we had to find strength to help people out. But this is not our responsibility, it is Latam’s – but they haven’t done anything. That’s very frustrating,’ Ms Azevedo said.
Another n passenger, Jacob Thompson, 33, hit his head in what Latam is calling a ‘strong shake’, while his partner got ‘thrown down the aisle’.
‘We didn’t know if we would make it to landing,’ he said, adding that what happened ‘did not feel like turbulence’, that he’d never felt anything like it before.
The passengers who were not taken to hospital were transported to an Auckland hotel at about 2am on Tuesday morning.
Breakfast there was the first meal they received since the cheeseburger at the airport.
Ms Azevedo and the injured woman she spent the night translating for are both due to catch the rescheduled flight to Santiago, Chile – flight LA800’s final destination – at 8pm tonight.
She said she is ‘terrified’ and is hoping to get something to help her sleep for the whole journey to South America.
The flight path of Latam Airlines’ LA800 Dreamliner service from Sydney to Auckland is pictured
As of Tuesday evening, four passengers are being treated in Middlemore Hospital with ‘significant’ injuries.
Latam said the injured passengers were from Brazil, France, , Chile and New Zealand.
A spokesperson said the airline ‘is working in coordination with the respective authorities to support the investigations into the incident’ and that it had ‘provided affected passengers with food, accommodation and transportation due to the flight cancellation’.
New Zealand’s Transport Accident Investigation Commission said Chile would be responsible for investigating the incident as it occurred in international airspace.
A passenger onboard flight LA800 is pictured being treated on the floor of the plane on Monday