Claudio Maia was asleep on the overnight flight from Rio de
Janeiro when severe weather tossed the plane, causing it to drop
suddenly. Oxygen masks dropped from overhead as passengers clung to
their seats.
By Jose Pagliery and Jennifer Lebovich, McClatchy Newspapers
MIAMI
Claudio Maia was asleep on the overnight flight from Rio de Janeiro when severe weather tossed the plane, causing it to drop suddenly. Oxygen masks dropped from overhead as passengers clung to their seats.
He said his 7-year-old son, Luis, received a deep gash on his chest when he was thrown. The metal edge of a table slashed his skin.
The early morning turbulence Monday – about an hour from Miami – injured more than two dozen aboard and forced an emergency landing at Miami International Airport.
None of the injuries was life threatening, and by Monday afternoon, the majority of patients had been released from area hospitals.
Continental Airlines Flight 128, with 168 passengers and 11 crew, had left Rio de Janeiro at 9:45 p.m. Sunday and was scheduled to land in Houston at 6 a.m.
Around 4:30 a.m. EDT – about 50 miles north of the Dominican Republic – the plane, a Boeing 767, encountered turbulence, officials said. The airline said the seat belt sign was on, though some passengers said people were not wearing seat belts.
“I felt the airplane was going to crash. I thought about Air France,” said passenger Camila Machado, 20, referring to Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in June, killing 228.
Maia’s family of four was sleeping near the rear of the aircraft when the plane suddenly dropped, tossing some passengers out of their seats.
“I was lucky because my mother was holding me,” said Mariana Maia, 9. She received minor abrasions to her leg.
Others did not fare as well. One woman violently crashed into the ceiling, according to witnesses, bloodying the side of her face.
For about 10 seconds, the plane shook as oxygen masks dropped, swinging as passengers clung to their seats, witnesses said.
“It felt like the plane was falling,” said Carolina Portella, 18, who travels to Brazil every summer.
Some passengers said the plane seemed to have dropped three times, with the last being the most severe.
“Everyone was sleeping, all of a sudden the turbulence went down, then up,” Machado said Monday afternoon at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where her mother Glauria Machado, 55, was treated for her injuries.
Camila Machado was thrown from her seat, but not injured. She looked over and saw her mother had hit her head on the ceiling. “She was bleeding a lot,” she said.
Glauria Machado was unconscious for a time, her daughter said. Machado described the time between the turbulence and landing in Miami: “One big hour.”
Airline staff desperately asked if a doctor was onboard, Portella said. One doctor got up from his seat in the first-class section and volunteered. Portella, fluent in Portuguese and English, translated for the doctor as he made his rounds throughout the aircraft.
The plane landed in Miami at 5:30 a.m. EDT.
Officials said 26 passengers were injured – 14 were taken to local hospitals. The rest were treated at the scene.
Eight were taken to Jackson Memorial with a variety of injuries, including minor head injuries and lacerations, according to a hospital spokeswoman. All were later released.
The black boxes were removed from the plane Monday and the data will be analyzed as part of the Federal Aviation Administration’s investigation, said Kathleen Bergen, an agency spokeswoman.
In a statement, Continental said its “priority at this time is to assist the customers and their families with their needs.”
The Machados decided not to let the emergency landing cancel their vacation to Las Vegas. Said Camila Machado, translating for her mother who speaks Portuguese, “She feels like she has a second life, like she was reborn.”
