A Paris-bound Iberia flight made an emergency landing after a bird strike caused smoke in the cabin, leading passengers to panic and use oxygen masks. No injuries reported.
An Iberia flight en route to Paris was forced to make an emergency landing on Sunday after a bird strike caused serious damage to the aircraft shortly after takeoff from Madrid’s Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport, according to The New York Post.
About 20 minutes into the flight, the aircraft, identified as IB-578 collided with a bird. The collision resulted in a severely damaged nose cone with a huge hole in the front. However, no injuries were reported; the incident definitely led to chaos and panic among the passengers.
After the collision, smoke filled the entire cabin. Passengers were seen grabbing oxygen masks as breathing became difficult. The footage has been going viral on the internet, showcasing passengers on board in stress amid the haze, clinging to their oxygen masks tightly. The background audio also captured the voice of children crying in anxiety.
WATCH:
One of the passengers, Giancarlo Sandoval, described the tense moments to the New York Post. “We thought that it was the turbulence that the captain was talking about, but then we started hearing a noise… and we were like, okay, something’s going on,” he said.
He added that the situation escalated rapidly: “It was like a domino effect from the back, where the smoke was coming from. People started pulling out their oxygen masks in panic."
On social media platform X (formerly Twitter), the incident triggered disbelief and speculation. “I had no idea a bird could wipe out an airplane,” one user wrote. Another added, “That’s not a bird that was tampered with." A third user commented, “Birds aren’t real, drone impact."
In response to the situation, Iberia praised the actions of its crew. “The entire flight crew, including pilots and cabin crew, acted with the utmost professionalism in managing the situation and attending to the passengers,” the airline said in a statement.
This isn’t the first such incident in recent times. Just last month, a Delhi-bound IndiGo flight had to return to Patna’s Jayaprakash Narayan International Airport after a bird strike caused a technical issue in one of its engines.
