Singapore Airlines Flight Encounters Turbulence, One dead, 30 injured in severely turbulent flight

One passenger was killed and 30 were injured when a Singapore Airlines flight from London encountered severe turbulence en route on Tuesday, forcing it to make an emergency landing in Bangkok, officials and the airline said.

“Singapore Airlines extends its heartfelt condolences to the family of the deceased. We sincerely apologize for the traumatic experience that our passengers and crew members had on this flight,” the airline stated, adding that it was working with Thai authorities to provide all necessary assistance.

Kittipong Kittikachorn, Director of Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, confirmed to Reuters that one male passenger died. Singapore Airlines reported that 18 people have been hospitalized and 12 are being treated in hospitals.

It was not immediately possible to reconstruct the incident from publicly available tracking data, but a FlightRadar 24 spokesperson said it was analysing data at 07:49 GMT that showed the plane tilting upwards and returning to its cruising altitude in less than a minute.

A passenger on the flight told Reuters that the incident involved the sensation of rising and 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 stated.

According to a FlightRadar 24 spokesperson, the data showing a drop in height suggests that the turbulence event occurred before the standard descent from 37,000 to 31,000 feet. That appears to be simply a flight level change in preparation for landing.”

The Boeing 777-300ER, carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew members, was on its way to Singapore when it made an emergency landing, according to the airline.

CNA, a Singapore news outlet, carried blurry pictures supplied by readers that it said appeared to be from the flight. They showed anxious passengers clinging to seats, oxygen masks hanging from above, personal items strewn across the aisle, and trash spilled on the cabin crew area floor.

Suvarnabhumi airport reported that the plane requested an emergency landing at 3:35pm local time and landed at 3:51. Uninjured passengers disembarked, and they will be transferred to another aircraft. The airline stated that it landed at 3:45.

According to a 2021 National Transportation Safety Board study, the most common type of airline accident is turbulence-related.

From 2009 to 2018, the US agency discovered that turbulence caused more than a third of reported airline accidents, with the majority resulting in one or more serious injuries but no aircraft damage.
Singapore Airlines, widely regarded as one of the world’s leading airlines and a benchmark for much of the industry, has not experienced any major incidents in recent years.

Its most recent fatal accident occurred on October 31, 2000, when a flight from Singapore to Los Angeles via Taipei collided with construction equipment at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport after attempting to take off from the incorrect runway. The crash killed 83 out of the 179 people on board.
The Aviation Safety Network reports that Singapore Airlines has had seven accidents.