Dr. Cecilia Laguzzi was jolted awake during an overnight flight home to Uruguay by severe turbulence, only to find her 2-year-old son stuck in the ceiling above the overhead compartment. “It was an image I will never forget,” Laguzzi recounted to “Good Morning America” after the shocking incident on the Air Europa flight. The airline reported that several passengers were hurtled towards the cabin ceiling during the turbulence.
The flight from Madrid to Montevideo experienced “heavy” turbulence early Monday morning, leading to a diversion to Brazil for safety reasons. The plane safely landed at Natal International Airport in São Gonçalo do Amarante, where multiple passengers were treated for serious injuries, told ABC News.
Laguzzi, a surgeon, was returning from a three-month internship in Barcelona with her husband and their two young children. She was awakened by unknown objects hitting her. “I felt something very hard hitting my head and then my back, and I fell on my head. I couldn’t get up at first,” she said. “I remember I was in the plane, and I could feel it like falling, like free falling, for what felt like an eternity.”
After what Laguzzi estimated to be six or seven seconds, the plane stabilized, and she began searching for her children. She found her four-year-old daughter with her husband but couldn’t locate her son amid the dark, chaotic aftermath with passengers and luggage strewn across the floor.
“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,” Laguzzi said. “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’s husband managed to retrieve their son, who was found above the luggage compartment where plastic had broken off. “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, but the moment I took him in my arms, he calmed down.” Despite being bruised, the family is otherwise okay.
Forty people were injured, with some sustaining serious injuries. Thirty passengers received medical care at the airport, while 10 were transported to the hospital for further examination. Seven passengers remained hospitalized in serious but not life-threatening condition as of Tuesday morning, Air Europa confirmed.
Laguzzi, who attended to other injured passengers after a flight attendant requested help, observed severe back pain, fractures, and injuries caused by falling plastic panels. She urged the crew to make an emergency landing in Brazil to provide immediate care to the injured.
The plane made an emergency landing at 2:32 a.m. local time Monday. After several hours, passengers were transported by bus to Recife to continue their flight to Montevideo. Despite her nervousness, Laguzzi and her family made it home Tuesday morning.
The incident, which occurred as the plane flew through the Intertropical Convergence Zone, remains under investigation. Laguzzi described the ordeal as “traumatizing” and said she doesn’t plan on flying “for a long time.” Reflecting on the event, she emphasized the helplessness felt by parents in such situations.
ABC News contributor Col. Steve Ganyard, a retired Marine Corps fighter pilot, noted, “The airplane is very, very strong. The second is, nobody that’s wearing a seatbelt gets hurt. It’s only the people who are not belted in that get hurt.”