Author: Chayut Setboonsarng
BANGKOK (Reuters) – One passenger was killed and 30 injured after a Singapore Airlines (OTC:) flight from London encountered severe turbulence mid-flight on Tuesday, forcing it to make an emergency landing in Bangkok, officials and the airline said.
“Singapore Airlines expresses its deepest condolences to the family of the deceased. We deeply apologize for the traumatic experience our passengers and crew endured on this flight,” the airline said, adding that it was working with Thai authorities to provide all necessary assistance.
One male passenger was killed, Kittipong Kittikachorn, director of Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, told Reuters. According to Singapore Airlines, 18 people were hospitalized and 12 are being treated in hospitals.
The incident could not immediately be reconstructed from publicly available tracking data, but a FlightRadar 24 spokesman said it was analyzing data around 0749 GMT that showed the plane pitching upward and returning to cruising altitude within a minute. .
A passenger on the flight told Reuters the incident left him feeling like he was rising and then falling.
“Suddenly the plane began to roll upward and began to shake, so I began to brace myself for what was happening, and very suddenly there was a very sharp drop, so that everyone who was sitting and not wearing a seat belt was immediately thrown into the ceiling,” – Dzafran Azmir, 28 years. A three-year-old student who was on board the plane told Reuters about this.
“Some people hit their heads on the luggage compartments overhead and dented them, they hit the places where the flashlights and masks are and broke them,” he said.
A FlightRadar 24 spokesman said regarding the data showing the altitude drop: “Our initial thought is that a turbulence event occurs before the standard descent from 37,000 to 31,000 feet. It looks like this is just a change in flight level in preparation for landing. ”
The Boeing (NYSE:) 777-300ER, carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew members, was en route to Singapore when it made an emergency landing, the airline said.
Singapore news outlet CNA published blurry photographs submitted by readers that they said were taken from an airplane. They showed anxious passengers clinging to seats with oxygen masks dangling from above, personal items strewn across the aisle and debris strewn across the cabin floor.
Suvarnabhumi Airport said the plane requested an emergency landing at 15:35 local time and landed at 15:51. The uninjured passengers have disembarked and another plane will carry them onwards. The airline said he landed at 3:45.
TURBULENCE
Turbulence-related plane crashes are the most common type, according to a 2021 National Transportation Safety Board study.
From 2009 to 2018, the US agency found that turbulence accounted for more than a third of reported aviation accidents, and in most cases resulted in one or more serious injuries but no damage to the aircraft.
Singapore Airlines, widely recognized as one of the world’s leading airlines and a benchmark for much of the industry, has not faced any major incidents in recent years.
His last fatal crash was a flight from Singapore to Los Angeles via Taipei, where he crashed into construction equipment at Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport on October 31, 2000, after attempting to take off from the wrong runway. The crash killed 83 of the 179 people on board.
According to the Aviation Safety Network, Singapore Airlines had seven accidents.
Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.