Travelers and crew yesterday landed in Singapore after a terrifying high-altitude plunge on a flight from London during which an elderly passenger died and more than 80 were injured.
Singapore Airlines Flight SQ321 on Tuesday hit “sudden extreme turbulence” over Myanmar 10 hours into its journey, abruptly rising and plunging several times.
People were thrown around the cabin so violently they put dents in the ceiling during the drama at 11,300m, leaving dozens with head injuries, one passenger said.
Photo: Reuters
Photos from inside the plane showed the cabin in chaos, strewn with food, drinks bottles and luggage, and with oxygen masks dangling from the ceiling.
Singapore Airlines chief executive officer Goh Choon Phong (吳俊鵬) yesterday said the carrier is “very sorry for the traumatic experience” endured by those on board.
“On behalf of Singapore Airlines, I would like to express my deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of the deceased,” he said in a video statement.
The plane, carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew, made an emergency landing at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, where medical staff used gurneys to ferry the injured to ambulances waiting on the tarmac.
A 73-year-old British man died, and Bangkok’s Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital late on Tuesday said that 71 people had been sent for treatment — six of them seriously injured.
The airport in the Thai capital said 83 passengers and crew were hurt.
A Thai Airways employee said he saw “more than 10” ambulances rushing to the scene.
Airport staff separated passengers into four groups based on their medical condition, said the airline employee, who gave only his first name, Poonyaphat.
A relief flight carrying 131 passengers and 12 crew yesterday morning landed at Singapore’s Changi Airport.
Relatives greeted the arrivals with hugs.
Andrew Davies, a British passenger aboard the Boeing 777-300ER, told BBC radio that the plane “suddenly dropped” and there was “very little warning.”
“During the few seconds of the plane dropping, there was an awful screaming and what sounded like a thud,” he said, adding that he helped a woman who was “screaming in agony” with a “gash on her head.”
Separately, he told a BBC podcast he feared the plane was going to crash.
“Remembering the plane now — the huge dents in the roof that people had obviously hit with their head. There was a water bottle stuck in a gap in the ceiling,” he said.
Scientists have long said that climate change is likely to increase so-called clear air turbulence, which is invisible to radar.
A study last year found the annual duration of clear air turbulence increased by 17 percent from 1979 to 2020, with the most severe cases increasing more than 50 percent.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS