Tonia Joy has a 30cm steel rod in her back and is not allowed to move after damaging her spine leaping from the Singapore Airlines plane that crashed in Taiwan, killing 81.
Ms Joy, aged 36, from Wellington, was in a comfortable condition yesterday in a Taipei hospital.
She has been told to stay flat on her back for five days and will be unable to travel for more than a week, said James Crighton, a relative.
Jay Aaron Spack, an Aucklander living in Western Australia, sustained minor injuries in the crash. He was discharged from hospital on Wednesday.
The Boeing 747, with 159 passengers and 20 crew on board, was taking off in a typhoon early on Wednesday (NZ time) when it is thought to have slammed into an object. It burst into flames.
Survivors have said they felt flight SQ006 hit something as the plane barrelled down the runway.
Singapore Airlines has defended the pilot's decision to take off in heavy wind and rain, saying he did not endanger lives.
Chou Kuang-tsan of the Aviation Safety Council, which investigates Taiwanese air accidents, said the plane apparently swerved off its runway and onto a spare runway that was under repair.
Emotions among the victims' families are running high. One distraught relative burst into a nationally televised Singapore Airlines news conference to denounce the airline.
"Everyone here knows who the dead are, but we were still crying back in Singapore and up until now, we know nothing. You owe us an explanation," a Singaporean woman shouted at Cheong Choong Kong, SIA chief executive officer and deputy chairman.
"Nobody knows anything, we were just there at the airport [in Singapore] crying, crying, crying."
Mr Cheong, visibly shaken by the outburst, said: "The need for information and the need for accuracy and also the need to be considerate to the feelings of the people concerned ... We were in a difficult position."
Ms Joy, a computer consultant, had been in Singapore for four days on business and was on her way to Atlanta in the United States when the accident happened.
She told her family that escape slides outside the plane had blown inwards and not inflated properly, forcing her to jump "two to three storeys" to safety, Mr Crighton said.
"She did say she was going to jump, and someone else on the plane said, 'You can't jump that far, wait'. And she said, 'Like hell'," said Mr Crighton's wife, Margaret.
Ms Joy spoke to local television reporters on Wednesday while being pushed toward the operating room at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital.
"I felt two hits and we twisted around twice," she said.
"The weather was just awful. Flames came so fast on both sides of the plane.
"I couldn't tell if we hit another aircraft ...
"I don't think we were airborne when it happened."
Singapore Airlines staff in New Zealand and around the world yesterday observed one minute of silence for those involved in the crash.
Flags on offices were flown at half-mast as a mark of respect for those who lost their lives, the airline said last night.
As officials from Singapore, Taiwan and the United States opened their investigation into the crash, families identified the bodies of the victims, many of whom were badly burned.
Sobbing and holding onto one another, the relatives began the grim process at Taipei's airport.
The accident was the first major crash for Singapore Airlines - consistently voted business travellers' favourite - in 28 years of operation.
Singapore Airlines, which owns 25 per cent of Air New Zealand, said it would give all families of victims $US25,000 ($63,532) immediate compensation.
- NZPA
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
Latest from World
'I challenged it and I have the scars': Liz Truss on being swiftly ejected as PM
FT: UK's shortest-serving PM on being ejected from offer and battling the 'deep state'.