A 2-year-old is lucky to be alive after being found trapped in the ceiling of a plane after heavy turbulence forced an emergency landing in Brazil.
Dr. Cecila Laguzzi spoke to Good Morning America about the ordeal while she and her son were traveling overnight to Uruguay on Air Europa’s UX045A on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. The flight was from Madrid, Spain, and was supposed to fly into Montevideo, Uruguay.
Laguzzi, a surgeon, shared during her interview she was returning home from a three-month internship in Barcelona. She was traveling with her husband and their two young children. However, things took an unfortunate turn mid-flight.
“I felt something very hard hitting my head and then my back,” she continued. “And I fell on my head, and I couldn’t get up at first. I remember I was in the plane, and I could feel it like falling, like free falling, for what felt like an eternity.”
Plane Passenger Estimated the Heavy Turbulence Lasted ‘Six or Seven’ Seconds
Laguzzi estimated that after six or seven seconds of the heavy turbulence, the plane resumed normal operations. That was when she started looking for her children. Both had been sleeping next to their father when the incident occurred.
She quickly found her four-year-old daughter with her husband but couldn’t find her son in the dark, “chaotic” aftermath.
“We were trying to find him on the floor and started screaming his name until someone told me, ‘Are you looking for a baby?’ and I said, Yes,” she recalled. “He said, ‘Well, it’s up there,’ and he pointed up, and the minute I look up he was there crying, looking at us.”
Laguzzi revealed she and her husband found their son above the luggage compartment. She said plastic had broken off in the compartment, making it easier for her husband to retrieve the 2-year-old.
“I’ll never forget how I felt in that moment,” Laguzzi said. “He was crying, he was very scared, and we were all very scared as well.”
She said that the moment she took him in her arms, he calmed down.
After looking him over, Laguzzi shared her son appeared to be fine. She added that her entire family was a “little bruised up” but otherwise ok.
Air Europa revealed that the plane was forced to divert to Brazil due to “the nature of the turbulence and for safety reasons.”
The aircraft landed safely at Natal International Airport in São Gonçalo do Amarante. Several of the injured passengers were treated for serious injuries.
The airline transferred the uninjured passengers by bus to the city of Recife. They were able to board a new plane from there and flew into Montevideo hours later.