One passenger was killed and 30 injured after a Singapore Airways flight from London suffered extreme turbulence en route on Tuesday, forcing it to make an emergency touchdown in Bangkok, officers and the airline stated.
“Singapore Airways affords its deepest condolences to the household of the deceased. We deeply apologize for the traumatic expertise our passengers and crew members suffered on this flight,” the airline stated, including that it was working with Thai authorities to supply all the required help.
The flight fell into an air pocket whereas the cabin crew was serving breakfast earlier than encountering turbulence, prompting the pilots to request an emergency touchdown, Suvarnabhumi airport common supervisor Kittipong Kittikachorn stated in a press release. Press convention.
A 73-year-old British man died through the incident, most likely as a result of a coronary heart assault, he stated. Seven individuals had been severely injured with head accidents.
Eighteen individuals have been hospitalized and 12 are being handled in hospitals, Singapore Airways stated.
It was not instantly doable to reconstruct the incident from publicly obtainable monitoring knowledge, however a FlightRadar 24 spokesperson stated it was analyzing knowledge round 07:49 GMT exhibiting the aircraft tilting upward and returning to its altitude. cruising within the area of 1 minute. .
A passenger who was on the flight instructed Reuters the incident concerned the feeling of rising after which falling.
“Immediately the aircraft began to tilt and there have been tremors, so I began to arrange for what was taking place, and really immediately there was a really dramatic drop, so everybody who was sitting and with no seat belt was instantly thrown out. in direction of the ceiling,” Dzafran Azmir, a 28-year-old pupil on board the flight, instructed Reuters.
“Some individuals hit their heads on the bags cabins above and dented them, hit the locations the place the lights and masks are and went via them,” he stated.
Kittikachorn stated a lot of the passengers he had spoken to had been sporting seat belts.
The FlightRadar 24 spokesperson stated concerning the information exhibiting a drop in altitude, “our preliminary thought is that the turbulence occasion is previous to the usual descent from 37,000 to 31,000 ft. That seems to be merely a flight degree change in preparation for touchdown.”
The Boeing 777-300ER aircraft with 211 passengers and 18 crew was headed to Singapore when it made the emergency touchdown, the airline stated.
Singapore information outlet CNA revealed blurry photographs offered by readers that it stated seemed to be from the flight. They confirmed anxious passengers clinging to seats, oxygen masks hanging from above, private gadgets strewn throughout the aisle and garbage strewn on the ground of the cabin crew space.
Suvarnabhumi Airport stated the aircraft requested an emergency touchdown at 3:35 p.m. native time and landed at 3:51 p.m. The unhurt passengers disembarked and one other aircraft would take them onward. The airline stated it landed at 3:45.
TURBULENCE
Turbulence-related airline accidents are the commonest sort, based on a 2021 examine by the Nationwide Transportation Security Board.
From 2009 to 2018, the US company discovered that turbulence accounted for greater than a 3rd of reported airline accidents and most resulted in a number of critical accidents however no harm to the plane.
Singapore Airways, which is well known as one of many world’s main airways and is a benchmark for a lot of the business, has had no main incidents in recent times.
His final accident inflicting casualties was a flight from Singapore to Los Angeles by way of Taipei, the place he crashed on October 31, 2000 into building gear at Taiwan’s Taoyuan Worldwide Airport after trying to take off from the fallacious runway. The accident killed 83 of the 179 individuals on board.
Singapore Airways has had seven accidents based on Aviation Security Community data.
Boeing BA.N stated it was involved with Singapore Airways and was prepared to supply help. He referred additional inquiries to the airline and native authorities.
“We categorical our deepest condolences to the household who misplaced a beloved one, and our ideas are with the passengers and crew,” he stated.