.jpg "File photo: Eight people were hospitalized after Avianca flight 042 diverted from Medellín and made an emergency landing at Miami International Airport due to turbulence. on Friday, Oct. 9.")
File photo: Eight people were hospitalized after Avianca flight 042 diverted from Medellín and made an emergency landing at Miami International Airport due to turbulence. on Friday, Oct. 9.
Courtesy of Avianca
An Avianca flight heading from Colombia to New York was rocked by turbulence, diverting the plane to Miami on Friday and sending several crew members and passengers to the hospital.
Avianca flight 042 was traveling from Medellin to JFK Airport when forced to make an emergency landing at MIA at 3:30 a.m. due to the turbulence, according to airport spokesperson Greg Chin.
Eight people were taken to the hospital, Chin said.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said the situation was a Level One Mass Casualty Incident, with one person being taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital Ryder Trauma Center. The other seven were taken to “local area hospitals by private ambulances,” according to MDFR.
Of those injured, three were cabin crew members and six were passengers, Avianca said in a statement.
The flight took off from José María Córdova International Airport at 10:40 p.m. Thursday before making the emergency stop, according to FlightAware. The plane took off to New York at 8:25 a.m., according to FlightAware.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident.
From 2009 to 2023, 40 passengers and 166 crew members were injured by severe turbulence, according to the FAA.
What could have caused the severe turbulence?
The Avianca flight was likely hit by turbulence between 2 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. Friday between Jamaica and Cuba, according to a review by AccuWeather, which compared flight track data with satellite data for the Miami Herald.
An area of thunderstorms had hit this region in the Caribbean on Thursday night and could have contributed to the turbulence, Dan DePodwin, vice president of forecasting operations, told the Herald. Thunderstorms can cause significant turbulence, he said.
Pilots are generally trained to avoid flying into thunderstorms, and on-board weather radar helps them do that. The radar can detect precipitation.
“However, it is not perfect,” DePodwin said.
“For example, when an updraft quickly develops, it’s possible that precipitation has not yet formed in that part of the cloud, which means radar does not yet show precipitation, creating a false sense of security for pilots,” he said.
Winds in a thunderstorm rapidly change speed and direction without notice which is a danger to aircraft, the AccuWeather executive said.
But some experts argue that rather than focusing on what could have caused the turbulence, — a disturbance in the air that is often weather-related — people should be questioning why the pilots did not do everything possible to avoid it, said Pablo Rojas, an aviation attorney at Podhurst Orseck law firm.
“Pilots have a duty and an obligation under international and domestic regulations to conduct an extensive pre-flight check,” Rojas said. “They check all the essential components of it. They check the instrument panel that they have in the cockpit, and they also check the weather. Pilots have these days an incredible wealth of information. “
With all the technology, experience and communication with air traffic control, pilots can understand what type of weather they’re flying into and alter their flight path, said Rojas, whose law firm is representing a survivor of the fatal Amazon-branded cargo plane crash at Miami International Airport.
“It really poses the question of why the pilots were either unaware of the weather or maybe made a decision not to alter their flight path early enough to avoid it,” Rojas said.
This breaking story will be updated.
This story was originally published October 9, 2026 at 7:33 AM.
Miami Herald
Milena Malaver covers crime and breaking news for the Miami Herald. She was born and raised in Miami-Dade and is a graduate of Florida International University. She joined the Herald shortly after graduating.