Passengers aboard an Air Canada plane were happy to be off the aircraft that crashed landed on Thursday at Edmonton International Airport. However, after a propeller crashed through a window of the plane, one woman is lucky to be alive, according to ABC News .
Accident investigators are trying to piece together the cause of a runway disaster last week involving a plane that was forced to make a hard landing. Apparently, Flight AC8481 blew a tire upon takeoff in Calgary on its route to Grande Prairie, Alberta. The airliner was carrying 75 passengers and crew aboard at the time, and couldn’t return due to a high crosswind.
The plane was redirected to Edmonton and tried to land on the left side of the runway, but the aircraft skidded to the right, came to a halt on the grassy side and straddled the runway. During the skid, a propeller came off and knifed through the window of the plane and hit one passenger in the head, knocking her glasses off. She and four other passengers received minor, non life-threatening injuries from the Air Canada ordeal.
Christina Kurylo is the lucky survivor who dodged death when the plane’s propeller blade narrowly missed her, possibly decapitating her or causing severe injury when it burst through the window. She weighed in on her harrowing experience aboard the aircraft during the emergency landing , talks about her injuries and recalls a stranger who saved her life.
All of a sudden, something came crashing through my window and I got hit in the head. He stayed with me right to the very end. He was fantastic. He really helped calm me down. A couple bumps on my head. Basically, the right side of my body is bruised and bumped.
“I’m really lucky. It could have been a million times worse. I could have died, you know, you never know what could have happened.”
Propeller smashes through plane window in Air Canada emergency landing: http://t.co/IHtegNWzGK pic.twitter.com/qP92TxvH55
— David Nelson (@DavidNelsonNews) November 10, 2014
Gianfranco Barilla, a passenger aboard the Air Canada flight, captured the harrowing scene inside the plane on video as Flight AC8481 made a “scary emergency landing” and the propeller crashed through the window.
The Transport Safety Board of Canada is investigating the cause of the accident. It will look into all possibilities including weather, defects, runway conditions, maintenance, and even pilot error .
Some sources point to a probable cause in the plane’s landing gear, while others mention trouble with the runway. However, Jazz Aviation said that the Q-400 aircraft was manufactured just two years ago and was “built robust.” Still, there have been similar reports of landing gear-related incidents in the past for Scandinavia Air from that model of plane.
Photos of the plane and video showing the propeller lodged in the plane’s window are stunning. Stay tuned for more on this developing story.
[Image via: CNN ]
