Passengers panic and shout as plane window cracks mid-flight

A Polish Airlines spokesperson said no threat was posed to passengers onboard and flight landed safely

Lucy Thackray
Friday 26 August 2022 10:01 BST
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The cracked window on the flight
The cracked window on the flight (TikTok/degenerate.destroyer2)

A passenger has posted video of the shocking moment a window appeared to crack in the middle of a transatlantic flight.

TikTok user Tristan, who posts as @degenerate.destroyer2, shared the terrifying clip of the incident, which occured on a LOT - Polish Airlines flight from Warsaw to New York.

“Throwback when our plane window cracked on Polish Airlines and everyone freaked tf out,” he captioned the clip.

The scare happened on 20 August, the passenger told The Sun, with the video garnering 4.9 million views in just two days.

A Polish Airlines spokesperson said only one, internal layer of the window had cracked, with no threat posed to passengers onboard.

They confirmed that the pilot had descended to 10,000 “as a precaution” but that the flight had landed safely with no further issues.

The spokesperson said: “This particular window was not broken. Dreamliner’s windows consist of many layers.

“What was broken was the internal layer responsible for dimming the window.

“This fault is well known, as electro photochromatic window dimming system is vulnerable to damage by physical contact with sharp or heavy objects.

“As a precaution, the captain decided to descent to 10,000 feet and continued to land safely at New York JFK airport.”

Last week, passengers on an overnight flight from Los Angeles to Auckland were shaken up when they awoke to oxygen masks dropping from the cabin ceiling.

Lights flashed on, masks dropped above passengers’ heads and an automated recording declared: “This is an emergency. This is an emergency. Put on your mask”, one customer told local press.

Frequent flyer Morgan Kelly said the Air New Zealand flight over the Pacific had been “totally uneventful” until the “insane” wake-up call.

Meanwhile, a Lufthansa flight was forced to divert to Boston on Monday, due to smoke pouring into the aircraft’s cockpit.

According to FlightAware, the plane was west of Nova Scotia, Canada, when it turned around to make an unscheduled landing at Boston’s Logan International Airport, just 50 minutes into the flight.

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