New Zealand’s Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) announced on Tuesday that it had seized the cockpit voice recorder of a LATAM Airlines Boeing 787 following an incident that injured more than 50 people, according to Reuters.
The airline and passengers aboard the Sydney-Oakland flight claimed on Monday that the aircraft with 263 passengers and nine crew members on board dropped abruptly mid-air. One of the passengers Brian Adam Jokat said:
“My neighbour who was in the seat two over from me, there was a gap in between us, as soon as I woke I looked and he was on the ceiling and I thought I was dreaming.”
A New Zealand air accident investigator reported that Chilean authorities confirmed that they had opened an investigation into the flight and were helping them with their enquiries. A spokesman for TAIC stated that since the incident occurred in international airspace, the Chilean accident investigation office should have opened an investigation.
TAIC is in the process of gathering evidence relevant to the inquiry, including seizing the cockpit voice and flight data recorders.
The New Zealand LATAM statement referred to the so-called “black boxes” that provided additional information about the flight path and communications between the pilots. LATAM is based in Chile, and the flight was due to continue to Santiago after a stopover in Auckland.
Earlier on Tuesday, the airline stated that it would assist the relevant authorities in any investigation into the “storm shake” during the flight.
The cause of the seemingly sudden change in flight path has not been explained at this time. Safety experts say most aviation accidents are caused by a combination of factors that need to be thoroughly investigated.
The aviation industry has renewed debate over the length of cockpit recordings after it emerged that data from the voice recorder of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 that lost its panel during a flight in January had been overwritten.
