Twenty-two people were injured when a large passenger plane needed to make an emergency landing in New York State after “extreme turbulence”.
The United Airlines Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner from Tel Aviv in Israel was heading for Newark Airport on Friday but was forced to touch down 70 miles away at New York Stewart International Airport.
The plane is said to have encountered high winds which led to customers complaining of nausea and chest pains in the turbulence.
Upon landing, seven passengers were rushed to hospital and another 15 were treated on site for injuries, the Sun reported on Saturday. There were 312 on board.
United Airlines said: “On Friday, United flight 85 landed at Stewart International Airport (SWF) after reported high winds at Newark.
“One passenger deplaned due to a medical incident, and a few other customers were seen by medical personnel for possible motion sickness.
“The flight refuelled and continued to Newark.”
The plane, which was delayed leaving Israel, encountered the winds at about 6.30pm and an investigation into the incident is set to follow on.
US regulators said Monday they ordered inspections of pilot seats on hundreds of Boeing 787 planes following a March flight in which the plane’s sudden plunge led to passenger injuries.
The Federal Aviation Administration is requiring inspections after a report “of uncommanded movement of the captain’s seat in the forward direction that caused a rapid descent,” the agency said in a statement.
Operators are also required to perform necessary corrective actions under the airworthiness directive, which affects 158 US-registered 787 Dreamliner models and 737 planes worldwide, the FAA said.
The move is in response to a March flight on a New Zealand-bound plane operated by LATAM Airlines that suddenly lurched downward while flying from Sydney to Auckland, injuring some 50 passengers.
Since that incident, the FAA has received reports from Boeing of four additional instances of “uncommanded horizontal movement” of the captain and first officer’s seats, the agency said.
Three of the incidents were due to “loose” switch caps on the seat, while the other two incidents are under investigation, the FAA said.
The “unintended and sustained movement of the seat” can lead to “in-flight upset from unintended and abrupt flight control inputs, which could result in a rapid descent of the airplane and serious injury to passengers and crew,” the FAA said.
“The FAA is issuing this airworthiness directive to address the unsafe condition on these products,” the agency added.
Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said on Monday it would require inspections of Boeing 787 Dreamliners following an incident in March when a LATAM Airlines plane went into a sudden mid-air dive that injured more than 50 passengers.
The FAA said the apparent reason for the dive was the uncommanded movement of the captain’s seat, which caused the auto-pilot to disconnect. The agency said it had received a total of five reports of similar problems with the captain and first officer seats on 787s, the most recent in June, and two remain under investigation.