1 dead, 30 injured as Singapore Airlines flight hits severe turbulence
One passenger was killed and 30 were injured after a Singapore Airlines flight from London encountered extreme turbulence en route on Tuesday, May 21, forcing it to make an emergency landing in Bangkok, officials and the airline reported.
Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport general manager Kittipong Kittikachorn said at a press conference that the flight from London to Singapore slid into an air pocket while the cabin crew was serving breakfast before encountering turbulence, which caused the pilots to request an emergency landing.
Photographs from the plane’s interior showed major gashes in the overhead cabin panels, gas masks and panels hanging from the ceiling, and hand luggage strewn about. A passenger said that some people’s heads had collided with the lights above the chairs, puncturing the panels.
“I saw things lying everywhere and many aircrews injured” with bruising, Kittikachorn claimed after the most seriously injured passengers and personnel were evacuated.
A 73-year-old British man died during the incident, most likely from a heart attack, according to Kittikachorn. Seven people were severely hurt, including some with head injuries. He stated that passengers were quiet as they were brought off the plane.
Singapore Airlines reported that 18 passengers have been hospitalized, and 12 are being treated in hospitals. Kittikachorn stated that the carrier had dispatched a team of 50 workers to assist in the care of the injured at the hospital.
“Singapore Airlines extends its heartfelt sympathies to the families of the deceased. “We deeply apologize for the traumatic experience that our passengers and crew members had on this flight,” the airline stated.
It was not immediately possible to reconstruct the event based on publicly accessible monitoring data. Still, a FlightRadar 24 representative reviewed data from 07:49 GMT that showed the plane leaning upwards and returning to its cruise altitude in less than a minute.
A passenger on the flight told Reuters that the occurrence entailed the sensation of rising and sinking.
“Suddenly, the aircraft started tilting up, and there was shaking, so I started bracing for what was happening, and very suddenly there was a very dramatic drop, so everyone seated and not wearing a seatbelt was launched immediately into the ceiling,” Dzafran Azmir, a 28-year-old student on board the flight, told Reuters.
“Some people hit their heads on the baggage cabins overhead and dented it. They hit the places where lights and masks are and broke straight through them,” he stated.
According to Kittikachorn, most of the people he spoke to wore seatbelts.
According to a FlightRadar 24 spokeswoman, the data showing a reduction in height suggests that the turbulence episode occurred before the typical descent from 37,000 to 31,000 feet. That appears to be simply a flight-level shift in preparation for landing.”
According to the airline, the Boeing 777-300ER was carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew members when it made the emergency landing.
Suvarnabhumi Airport reported that the plane requested an emergency landing at 3:35 pm local time (8:35 am GMT) and landed at 3:51. Uninjured passengers disembarked and will be transferred to another plane. The airline stated that it landed at 3:45 p.m.
Boeing said it was in contact with Singapore Airlines and was ready to assist. It directed additional queries to the airline and local authorities.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB) will send investigators to Bangkok to investigate the event.