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.
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