FAA requiring Boeing 787 inspections after LATAM midair dive

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it is requiring inspections of Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft following a midair dive by a LATAM Airlines flight in March.

“The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is issuing an immediately effective Airworthiness Directive (AD) for certain Boeing 787-8, 9, and -10 airplanes,” the FAA said in an emailed statement to The Hill on Tuesday.

“The AD requires operators to inspect Captain’s and First Officer’s seats for missing or cracked rocker switch caps and for cracked or nonfunctional switch cover assemblies within 30 days,” the statement continued. “Operators must also perform any necessary corrective actions.”

One of the passengers on the March LATAM flight from Australia to New Zealand talked about other passengers getting tossed from seats and striking the roof as the plane quickly plunged. LATAM previously said that after the plane went through a “strong shake,” a minimum of 50 people were injured.

“The plane, unannounced, just dropped. I mean it dropped unlike anything I’ve ever experienced on any kind of minor turbulence, and people were thrown out of their seats, hit the top of the roof of the plane, thrown down the aisles,” Brian Jokat, a passenger, told Australia’s ABC News, according to a report published in March.

Some roof panels “were broken from people being thrown up and knocking through the plastic roof panels in the aisleways. And there was blood coming from several people’s heads,” he said.

The Associated Press reported in March that following a report stating unintended motion by a cockpit seat was probably behind the LATAM plunge, Boeing was making moves for the inspection of pilot seat switches.

In an emailed statement to The Hill, Boeing said it “fully” backs “the FAA’s Airworthiness Directive which makes mandatory a supplier’s guidance to 787 operators.”

LATAM declined to comment when The Hill reached out to the airline.