Damaged plane makes emergency landing after encountering severe weather
Marlon Sorto and Sanie López-Garelli, CNN
A LATAM Airlines plane was damaged traveling from Santiago, Chile, to Asunción, Paraguay, and had to make an emergency landing at Silvio Pettirossi International Airport on Wednesday after experiencing “severe weather conditions during its flight path,” the airline told CNN in a statement on Thursday.
“Passengers and crew are safe and well,” the statement said, adding the airline regretted “any inconvenience this weather situation may have caused to its passengers.”
Telefuturo reported that 48 people were traveling on the flight.
The images obtained by the station show the damaged aircraft with its nose missing and its windshield smashed.
The General Directorate of Civil Aviation of Chile reported in a statement Thursday that the Paraguayan aviation authorities have initiated an investigation and that a team of specialists from the Chilean entity “will be integrated on the ground to collaborate with this investigative process.”
CNN en Español reached out to the Paraguayan National Directorate of Civil Aeronautics on Thursday for more information but has not yet received a response.
Scary flight for passenger
“Near Asunción the terrible turbulence began and people already started to panic and then the pilot tells us to prepare for an emergency landing,” passenger Pabla Thomen told a private radio station, Monumental AM 1080, on Thursday.
Thomen added that she got scared and hugged her daughter during the turbulence and at one point her seat belt came undone. She was able to put her seat belt back on with the help of another passenger.
The woman also indicated in the telephone interview that at one point she was “saying goodbye to her daughter, telling her that she loved her, adored her and that they would always be together.”
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly cited Paraguay’s Telefuturo as a CNN affiliate.
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Top image: This LATAM plane landed with nose damage in Paraguay. (From Telefuturo)
