Hawaiian Airlines flight to Australia leaves 7 injured as it ‘just fell’ due to ‘severe turbulence’

Passengers have revealed the horrific moment when a Hawaiian Airlines flight from Honolulu to Sydney ran into severe turbulence, leaving seven injured.

According to multiple accounts, the plane bound for Australia – identified as flight HA451 – went into a nosedive, sending passengers flying out of their seats and falling to the ground.

Now confirmed by the airline, the turbulence hit about five hours into the plane’s 11-hour journey across the Pacific, pushing several passengers out of their seats and into the cabin above.

Shocking photos show the full extent of the damage – including the hole-ridden, ragged ceiling – and after it took on high winds and encountered “severe turbulence” while flying over the Pacific.

Officials, meanwhile, confirmed that the plane was carrying 163 passengers, as well as 12 crew members. Three of the injured were released after being assessed at the scene, while four were taken away for further investigation. The FAA is investigating the incident.

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“The plane just dropped,” said passenger Sultan Baskonyali ABC news On Sunday, days before Hawaiian revealed that a total of seven people – including at least three flight attendants – were injured.

She recalled, “There was a man in front of us who had gone all the way up. He hit his head on the roof and fell down again.

“We weren’t prepared.”

Another passenger, Tara Goodall, added that her two children were among those injured and released — while claiming she still hadn’t heard from Hawaiian as of Monday.

“I have not heard from the airline at all, even though both of my children who were on the flight suffered minor injuries,” Goodall told The Associated Press on Monday, sharing footage of cracks in the ceiling believed to have been made by passengers.

A shocking image showed the plane’s deployed oxygen masks in the foreground, as well as a man who had an apparent injury with an ice pack on his head.

Another unnamed passenger shared two images with Reddit of similar “damage to the cabin” which she said was “caused by human bodies flying out of the seats after the plane entered shocking turbulence.”

One image showed a ceiling panel in the walkway between the seats bent out of shape, while another showed a huge crack next to the control panels above a passenger’s head.

The traveler, who is from Australia, described how both passengers and crew members were thrown around the cabin as the plane plunged about 900 meters at a speed of about 1,000 km/h.

“We were told over the intercom that the turbulence was about to get bad and that we should all buckle up and not get up to go to the bathroom,” they wrote.

“Before the sentence was finished, the plane started shaking like crazy before pushing the nose down and the engines propelling us down at 950 mph.

They added: ‘The pilot recovered us after a few seconds – but according to the altitude readings on the in-flight radar on the screen before and after the dive, we descended somewhere between 800 meters (2624 feet) and 1 km (3280 feet). meters). feet) in those few seconds.’

Others also described seeing fellow passengers suddenly rise up before falling back down – leading several on social media to chastise the travelers for now wearing seatbelts during what was believed to be a safety alert.

The criticism caused the aforementioned Australian passenger – who did not give her name – to reveal that the time between verbal warning and the event was only seconds.

They joked, “Nobody can avoid an entire 11-hour flight to pee, and the time between the verbal warning on the intercom and the event was barely a few seconds.

“Besides,” she added, “most of the seriously injured were crew members who didn’t have the luxury of wearing their seatbelts all the time.”

The person further recalled hearing the screams of several fellow passengers and crew members amidst the chaos – sounds they said would stay with him for the foreseeable future.

“I think we’re just really shocked by it.”

Meanwhile, Hawaiian — one of several airlines that has suffered a slew of delays and cancellations in recent weeks — revealed on Monday that a total of seven passengers were injured as a result of the ordeal, four of them somewhat seriously.

Of that group, one person was a passenger, a spokesperson confirmed to DailyMail.com, while the other three were all flight attendants. They have since been released, the representative said.

As for the sole hospitalized passenger, the airline was unable to provide an update on their condition, but said staff members were currently in contact with that individual.

“Our number one priority is to continue to care for our passengers and crew affected by this turbulence, and we thank Sydney Airport first responders for their prompt assistance,” the airline said.

Goodall, meanwhile, described the ordeal on Tuesday as she returned home to Sydney after a visit to Hawaii – the first overseas trip for her two sons.

It was hard, she said in text messages, “watching your kids throw around the plane cabin” and not being able to make them feel safe.

She said she was not ready to discuss the turbulence in more detail as she was still upset and emotional about it.

The incident is not the first time passengers have been injured aboard a Hawaiian airliner due to turbulence.

Last year, severe turbulence injured 25 people board a flight from Phoenix to Honolulu. Four passengers and two crew members were seriously injured. The aircraft sustained minor damage.

The captain of the Dec. 18 flight told investigators conditions were smooth with clear skies as a cloud lifted in front of the plane and there was no time to change course, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report.

Hawaiian airlines Chief Operating Officer Jon Snook said at the time that such turbulence is unusual, noting that the airline had never experienced anything like it in recent history.

The sign to fasten seat belts was on at the time, although some of the injured were not wearing them, he said.

According to the NTSB report, it happened about 40 minutes before landing in Honolulu.

As for the more recent incident, the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that it is currently investigating.