SYDNEY - New Zealand's Transport Accident Investigation Commission said on Tuesday it was seizing the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder of a Latam AM Airlines Boeing 787 after a mid-air incident that injured about 50 people.
Local media reports describe how the aircraft’s sudden drop in altitude sent passengers flying into the roof of the cabin and then dropping back down to the floor.
The airline did not specify the nature of the technical event. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the pilot said his gauges went blank and he was unable to fly the plane.
No one was seriously injured but seven of the 263 passengers and three of the nine crew members on Latam flight 800 were taken to hospital after the plane landed in Auckland.
The New Zealand accident investigator said Chilean authorities had confirmed they had opened a probe into the flight, and it was assisting with their enquiries. The flight was en route from Sydney to Santiago in Chile, via Auckland.
A spokesperson for TAIC said because the incident on the Sydney-Auckland flight on Monday occurred in international airspace it fell to Chilean accident investigation authority Direccion General de Aeronautica Civil (DGAC) to open an inquiry.
"TAIC is in the process of gathering evidence relevant to the inquiry, including seizing the cockpit voice and flight data recorders," the New Zealand agency said. The so-called "black boxes" will provide more information on the flight's trajectory and communications between pilots.
DGAC said in a statement it was working with TAIC on the investigation. LatamTAM did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it had given the black boxes to TAIC. The airline said earlier on Tuesday it would assist the relevant authorities on any investigation.
Safety experts say most airplane accidents are caused by a cocktail of factors that need to be thoroughly investigated.
New Zealand's Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement it would also assist in the investigation if required.
There has been renewed debate over the length of cockpit recordings in the aviation industry since it was revealed voice recorder data on the Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet that lost a panel mid-flight in January was overwritten.
