Co-pilot ‘sucked halfway’ out of cockpit of Airbus

CHINA- Co-Pilot in the Sichuan Airlines was forced to make an emergency landing and was “sucked halfway” out of the plane after a cockpit windshield blew out, the media reported, citing the aircraft’s captain.

Liu Chuanjian as been hailed as a hero on social media after he had to land the Airbus A319 manually. He told the Chengdu Economic Daily that the aircraft had just reached a cruising altitude of 32,000 feet when a loud sound tore through the cockpit.

The cockpit suddenly lost pressure and dropped in temperatures, when Chuanjian looked over the cockpit, the right windshield was gone.

His quoted as saying, “There was no warning sign. Suddenly, the windshield just cracked and made a loud bang. The next thing I know, my co-pilot had been sucked halfway out of the window,”

“Everything in the cockpit was floating in the air. Most of the equipment malfunctioned … and I couldn’t hear the radio. The plane was shaking so hard I could not read the gauges.”

The co-pilot who was wearing a seat-belt was pulled back in, he suffered scratches and a sprained wrist, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said, they added that one other cabin crew member was also injured in the descent.

None of the plane’s 119 passengers were injured.

Unnamed passenger speaking to government owned China News Service said, “The crew were serving us breakfast when the aircraft began to shake. We didn’t know what was going on and we panicked. Then the oxygen masks dropped… We experienced a few seconds of free fall before it stabilised again,”

“I’m still nervous. I don’t dare to take an airplane anymore. But I’m also happy I had a narrow escape.”

The windshield broke only just half an hour after the plane had taken off.

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