Air Passengers Injured on a Turbulent Flight Forced to Make an Emergency Landing

Buy an ad on DigitalJournal.com

Passenger Pritnam Sunter told CTV News that she had just returned to her seat and was about to read a book when she was tossed around, up against the window for the jarring moments, while the crew tried to regain control of the plane. "I felt like I was tossed around along the window, back and forth, and it felt like the plane was going down -- and I thought 'we're dying,'" She said that she didn't even have a chance to put on her seat belt "Nobody had a chance (to react), it just happened too quickly"

Duncan Dee, who is Air Canada's Vice President of Customer Experience, did not explicitly say what the problem with the plane had been, but told reporters that the company would cooperate with an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board and conduct their own internal investigation to find answers, before commenting further.

Pritnam's husband Amar had told reporters that the Pilot had "offered that the auto pilot malfunctioned and they had to take control and run the plane manually."

Another passenger named Richard Kool told CBC News by email that the pilot had come over the intercom and said that there had been a computer failure and that they had to take manual control of the plane.

John Cottreau, spokesman for the Transportation Safety Board said "The aircraft was at … 35,000 feet when the event happened. Control problems were experienced by the crew. The captain declared an emergency"

The violent pitching of the plane and loss of altitude took place over approximately 15 seconds according to the comments made by passengers to various reporters. Others described the scene, in graphic detail. One passenger said that her friend, who was later hospitalized hit the ceiling of the plane. Another passenger named Andrew Evans told CBC "I was in the very, very front seat of the plane and was watching dishes fly through the air...There was a crash. The cart tipped over and there was a lot of squealing."

According to Jayne Harvey a nurse that had been a passenger aboard the plane described the white knuckled incident "Some of the armrests on the aisle seat sides were bent 60 degrees from people holding on. That's how extreme it was."

Daniel Baker, CEO of FlightAware told the Globe and Mail “The flight was in a climb and cruised briefly at 35,000 feet and then at 36,000 feet and then descended down to 31,000 feet.”

Flight AC190 landed safely in Calgary, at about 8:30 Mountain time, where emergency services quickly transported injured passengers to the hospital. 83 passengers and five crew members had been aboard the plane. Currently six patients remain in hospital in stable condition, but with potentially life-threatening injuries. Four other passengers suffered minor injuries but were released later.