Air Canada flight from Sydney hits turbulance, 15 injured

[Ryan N]

Air Canada flight from Sydney hits turbulance, 15 injured

Agence France-Presse
April 25, 2009 03:54am

FIFTEEN passengers and crew were hurt when an Air Canada jet from Sydney to Vancouver hit severe turbulance over the Pacific Ocean, the airline said.
The aircraft made an unscheduled two-hour stop in Honolulu, Hawaii, where nine passengers and two flight attendants were treated at the airport for "minor injuries", Air Canada spokeswoman Isabelle Arthur said.

Two passengers and two flight attendants also remained in Honolulu for further assessment while the aircraft resumed its flight.

They were expected to return to Canada later on Friday after being released by medical staff, she said.

The Boeing 777-200LR was carrying 256 passengers and 17 crew members, according to an airline statement.

[David M]

How would they have flown in an extra two F/A's to complete the flight? Not unless they had too many F/A's to begin with.

David.M.

[Adam G]

David - a lot of wide body aircraft - in particluar on international multi class airlines operate with more the the minimum required cabin crew due to service requirements.

The on board manager can normally elect to depart with a reduced crew compliment (as well as it's above the legal minimum) - it also protects against things like mid duty sickness upline etc

[Andrew M]

Very good load factors for this flight with only 16 seats free!

HNL would have probably had some spare AC flight attendants as AC does fly to HNL

[Jack B]

was C-FIUJ the aircraft in question?

[Grahame Hutchison]

Jack, based on the news report date and time the aircraft in question should have been the Friday morning departure.

C-FIUJ AC0034 24/04/2009 10:48 Air Canada B777-233LR Sydney-Vancouver

[Andrew M]

Originally Posted by Jack Brownbill

was C-FIUJ the aircraft in question?

Yes

[Michael Cleary]

And presumably they all then had to go through US Immigration before reboarding?

[Al.B.SYD]

Originally Posted by Adam G

David - a lot of wide body aircraft - in particluar on international multi class airlines operate with more the the minimum required cabin crew due to service requirements.

17 crew according to the news reports, less 3 or possibly 4 front-end drivers leaves 13-14 cabin crew. AC's 77L's seat 42 up front and 230+ down back, so under the North American 1 crew per 50 seats way of allocating crew numbers, they definitely had a few spare to operate legally with 2 less.

Originally Posted by Andrew M

Very good load factors for this flight with only 16 seats free!

I've taken that flight several times over the past couple of years and it's always been reasonably heavy whenever I've flown it. Particularly up front with AC's good new International long haul cabin hard product and the length of journey allowing corporate travellers to go into the cabin under their travel contracts.
There also seems to be a lot of people using it to get to other points within the Americas/Carribbean without having to go through the USA rigmorale. Even when I've gone directly into the U.S. I've used this flight and entered the U.S. at YVR or YYZ - a far better, easier and more pleasant experience than at LAX as example.

Originally Posted by Michael Cleary

And presumably they all then had to go through US Immigration before reboarding?

The Canadian online newspaper versions have reports from passengers that were on the flight or from their families in Canada. Along the lines of "rang me from inside the plane while on the ground" sort of thing. My guess is they didn't deplane any that weren't required to (for injuries). Would have been a longer than 2 hour stop otherwise.