The co-pilot of a Sichuan Airlines flight that was forced to make an emergency landing on Monday was "sucked halfway" out of the plane after a cockpit windshield blew out, local media reported citing the aircraft's captain. Captain Liu Chuanjian, hailed as a hero on social media after having to land the Airbus A319 manually, told the Chengdu Economic Daily his aircraft had just reached a cruising altitude of 32,000 feet when a deafening sound tore through the cockpit. “There was no sign before the windshield burst. A former pilot explains 



"The windshield burst suddenly and a loud noise was heard, and when I looked to the side, I saw that the co-pilot was already halfway out of the window. The next thing I know, my co-pilot had been sucked halfway out of the window," he was quoted as saying. Zhou said that some air stewardesses were thrown into air and that food was strewn about. “The plane was shaking so hard I could not read the gauges.”

The co-pilot, who was wearing a seatbelt, was pulled back in and miraculously only suffered scratches and a sprained wrist, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said. No passengers were hurt, but the pilot who was partially sucked out of the plane had scratches and a wrist sprain, according to Chinese media citing the Civil Aviation Administration of China's (CAAC) Southwest Regional Administration. Officials confirmed that none of the plane’s 119 passengers or any of the other cabin crew were injured in the nightmarish descent. The cause of the incident was still under investigation, he added. Captain Liu Chuanjian and his crew were praised for making an emergency landing after the incident, which occurred Monday morning at 30,000 feet on an Airbus A319 flight from the southern city of Chongqing to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. Captain Liu Chuanjian and his crew were praised for making an emergency landing after the incident, which occurred at 30,000 feet on an Airbus A319 flight from the Southern city of Chongqing to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. Then the oxygen masks dropped... We experienced a few seconds of free fall before it stabilised again," an unnamed passenger told the government-run China News Service. The windshield shattered over the southwest city of Chengdu about an hour and twenty minutes after flight 3U8633 took off at 6.27 am local time (1027 GMT), the CAA said in statement released by CCTV. In 1990, one of the pilots on British Airways Flight 5390 was blown partially out of the cabin window after its windshield blew out at 23,000 feet.
A pilot is injured when a cockpit window breaks and he is partially sucked out of the Airbus A319 operating Sichuan Airlines Flight 8633. The aircraft lands safely at Chengdu.