LATAM

LATAM flight diverts after captain collapses; passengers left stranded at Panama City

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On 14 August, a LATAM Airlines Boeing 787-9 (registered CC-BGI) operated flight LA505 between Miami, United States and Santiago, Chile. Three hours into the flight, one of the two captains on the flight collapsed and died in the lavatory. The other captain and the copilot safely landed the aircraft at Panama City, Panama.

During the diversion, cabin crew attempted to resuscitate the pilot but without success, he was declared dead upon arrival at Panama City Airport.

Passengers on the flight felt left behind by LATAM Airlines, Twitter (X) user Frunfrun wrote: “Latam flight LA505, miami to santiago, passengers dropped in Panama, there is no Latam staff and they don’t provide information, families with children, apparently the pilot died!!! We have been more than 5 hours and nothing is clear…

we have been dumped at the airport without information since 12 at night, staff from Latam disappeared and there is no one to provide information, we have been dumped for almost 6 hours.”

This post was published on 15 August 2023 22:54

Bart Noëth

Working for 25 years in the aviation industry, I changed my career and became a firefighter/EMT in 2021. I like to spend my free time with my two sons, girlfriend, family and friends. I love to travel, wine and dine and support my favourite football squad KV Mechelen. Once an Ironman 70.3 finisher and dreaming of completing a full distance.

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Bart Noëth

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