A LATAM Airlines plane was damaged traveling from Santiago, Chile, to Asunción, Paraguay, and had to make an emergency landing at Silvio Pettirossi International Airport on Wednesday after experiencing "severe weather conditions during its flight path," the airline told CNN in a statement on Thursday. "Passengers and crew are safe and well," the statement said, adding the airline regretted "any inconvenience this weather situation may have caused to its passengers." Telefuturo reported that 48 people were traveling on the flight. The images obtained by the station show the damaged aircraft with its nose missing and its windshield smashed. The General Directorate of Civil Aviation of Chile reported Thursday that the Paraguayan aviation authorities have initiated an investigation and that a team of specialists from the Chilean entity "will be integrated on the ground to collaborate with this investigative process." "Near Asunción the terrible turbulence began and people already started to panic and then the pilot tells us to prepare for an emergency landing," passenger Pabla Thomen told a private radio station, Monumental AM 1080, on Thursday. Thomen added that she got scared and hugged her daughter during the turbulence and at one point her seat belt came undone. She was able to put her seat belt back on with the help of another passenger.<br/>
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Icelandair is seeking by the end of this decade to become the first national flag carrier airline to operate all its domestic routes with emissions-free aircraft, its chief executive has said. The carrier aims to exploit its homeland’s abundant cheap, carbon-free electricity to fuel the aircraft, either by powering batteries or generating hydrogen for use in fuel cells, according to Bogi Nils Bogason. “We’re focusing on having our domestic operation carbon-free by the end of this decade,” Bogason said. The airline operates three domestic routes from its home base at Reykjavík airport just outside the centre of the capital— to Egilsstadir, Akureyri and Ísafjördur. The longest flight, to Egilsstadir, takes an hour. “We firmly believe it’s realistic that we will be operating a carbon-emission-free aircraft in our domestic operations before the end of this decade,” Bogason said during a visit to London. “Our plans are for that, whether it will be hydrogen-powered or a partly electric-powered aircraft.” Although Norway’s Widerøe airlines last year announced plans for passenger operations with an electric aircraft, Icelandair’s plans are more ambitious.<br/>