Turbulence on a flight from Spain to Uruguay on Monday was so severe that at least 36 people were hurt, with some even suffering neck and skull fractures, according to a report from the New York Times. Videos posted online after the turbulence appear to show seats stained with blood and one viral video even shows a man who got stuck in an overhead bin during the flight.
Air Europa flight UX045 from Madrid, Spain to Montevideo, Uruguay was a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, according to reports, and 23 of the 36 people who were injured were taken to the hospital. Four of the hospitalizations are people in intensive care, according to the New York Times.
One passenger from the flight told Telemundo that an announcement was made by the captain that everyone should put their seatbelts on due to turbulence, but after about 20 minutes, people let their guard down because it was so mild.
“Then at one point people started to relax,” the passenger told Telemundo, according to an English language translation by Google. “There were people walking, people without belt. There were children sleeping without a belt.”
Then the plane rapidly descended, sending people like an elderly man and a small child soaring into the air, according to the passenger. The man who got stuck in the overhead bin was walking in the aisle when it happened.
Incidents of severe turbulence have been in the news frequently this year, with one man on a Singapore Airlines flight back in May even dying in an extreme and horrifying case. Not long after that incident, a flight attendant broke her back on a flight in Turkey that suffered bad turbulence.
Bad injuries on flights with turbulence are still rare, with just 163 severe injuries reported from 2009 to 2022, according to the FAA. But there’s evidence that turbulence is getting more severe, which could be a problem for the future of air transportation. Incredibly, flying is still much safer than driving a car.
When the captain tells you to buckle your seatbelt, do it. And even if you haven’t been given explicit instructions, it’s still a good idea to keep your seatbelt fastened. We may feel completely normal to get up and walk around without a care in the world. But you’re still soaring 30,000 feet in the air protected by little more than a large metal tube that surrounds you. Don’t take it for granted.