One dead, dozens injured as Singapore Airlines flight hits 'severe turbulence'

One passenger was killed and 30 injured after a Singapore Airlines flight hit severe turbulence on Tuesday, flinging passengers and crew around the cabin and forcing the plane to land in Bangkok.

The flight from London and bound for Singapore fell into an air pocket while cabin crew were serving breakfast before it encountered turbulence, prompting the pilots to request an emergency landing, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport general manager Kittipong Kittikachorn told a press conference.

The sudden turbulence occurred over the Irrawaddy Basin in Myanmar about 10 hours into the flight, the airline said. The pilot declared a medical emergency and diverted the aircraft to Bangkok, it said without giving further details.

Photographs from the interior of the plane showed large gashes in the overhead cabin panels, gas masks and panels hanging from the ceiling and items of hand luggage strewn around.

A passenger said some people's heads had slammed into the lights above the seats and punctured the panels.

"I saw things lying everywhere and many air crew injured" with bruising, Kittikachorn said after the most critically injured passengers and crew had been evacuated.

A 73-year-old British man died during the incident, likely due to a heart attack, Kittikachorn said. Seven people were critically injured, some with head injuries. He added people were calm as they were led from the plane.

Eighteen people have been hospitalised and 12 are being treated in hospitals, Singapore Airlines said. The carrier has sent a team of 50 people to help take care of the injured at the hospital, Kittikachorn added.

"Singapore Airlines offers its deepest condolences to the family of the deceased. We deeply apologise for the traumatic experience that our passengers and crew members suffered on this flight," the airline said.

Singapore Airlines flight #SQ321, operating from London (Heathrow) to Singapore on 20 May 2024, encountered severe turbulence en-route. The aircraft diverted to Bangkok and landed at 1545hrs local time on 21 May 2024.

We can confirm that there are injuries and one fatality on…

— Singapore Airlines (@SingaporeAir) May 21, 2024

It was not immediately possible to reconstruct the incident from publicly available tracking data, but a spokesperson for FlightRadar 24 said it was analysing data at around 07:49 GMT which shows the plane tilting upwards and return to its cruising altitude over the space of a minute.

A passenger who was on the flight told Reuters that the incident involved the sensation of rising then falling.

"Suddenly the aircraft starts 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 it," he said.

Kittikachorn said most of the passengers he had spoken to had been wearing their seatbelts.

The Boeing 777-300ER plane had 211 passengers and 18 crew when it made the emergency landing, the airline said.

Suvarnabhumi airport said 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 an another aircraft will fly them onwards. The airline said it landed at 3:45 pm.

JUST IN: Boeing offers condolences after a passenger was killed on a Boeing 777 plane, says their “thoughts” are with the passengers and crew.

In total 30 people were injured and a 73-year-old British man was killed.

The incident happened after the plane fell a whopping… pic.twitter.com/qWyVjMroqF

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 21, 2024

TURBULENCE

Turbulence-related airline accidents are the most common type, according to a 2021 study by the National Transportation Safety Board.

From 2009 through 2018, the US agency found that turbulence accounted for more than a third of reported airline accidents and most resulted in one or more serious injuries, but no aircraft damage.

Singapore Airlines, which is widely recognised as one of world's leading airlines and is a benchmark for much of the industry, has not had any major incidents in recent years.

Its last accident resulting in casualties was a flight from Singapore to Los Angeles via Taipei, where it crashed on October 31, 2000 into construction equipment on the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport after attempting to take off from the wrong runway.

The crash killed 83 of the 179 people on board.

Boeing said it was in touch with Singapore Airlines and was ready to provide support.

"We extend our deepest condolences to the family who lost a loved one, and our thoughts are with the passengers and crew," it said.

Singapore's Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB) will be deploying investigators to Bangkok to look into the incident.