Nearly three dozen passengers and crew sustained minor injuries Thursday when an Air Canada 777-200 carrying 284 passengers struck severe turbulence on its way to Sydney. The plane landed at Honolulu. Flight AC33 was about two hours past Hawaii over the Pacific Ocean early Thursday morning when unexpected and sudden turbulence triggered a turnaround and caused “minor injuries” for about 35 travellers, the airline said in an email. Eyewitnesses described a gut-churning drop in altitude that slammed passengers and flight attendants into the ceiling. “We hit turbulence and we all hit the roof and everything fell down, and stuff… people went flying,” passenger Jess Smith told local station KHON in Honolulu.
PASSENGERS THROWN TO CEILING
“I watched a whole bunch of people hit the ceiling of the plane,” said Alex MacDonald. “A couple of the air hostesses were bringing food out at the time, and they hit the roof as well. But as a whole people seem to be OK, didn’t seem to be any major injuries.” MacDonald added that staff and ground crew were “amazing” in the wake of the incident. The turbulence happened at about 10,970 metres 966 kilometres southwest of Honolulu, said U.S. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor.
