Singapore Airlines Flight Turbulence: Passengers Aboard Describe Terror At 37,000 Feet As Scary Visuals Emerge

Passengers aboard the Singapore Airlines’ Flight SQ321 which met severe turbulence while flying from London’s Heathrow airport to Singapore on Monday described the horror inside the plane.

Passengers said they saw both fellow passengers and cabin crew members getting seriously hurt due to the turbulence. A passenger told a media outlet that every single member of the cabin crew was injured and some even had gashes.

Another passenger said that his son was flung back two rows and he himself hit the roof of the plane where usually oxygen masks and light and fan vents are installed, suffering moderate to serious wounds in the process.

A 73-year-old British man died and more than 70 people were injured Tuesday in what passengers described as a terrifying scene aboard a Singapore Airlines flight that hit severe turbulence, triggering an emergency landing in Bangkok.

Singapore Airlines said the nationalities of the passengers were 56 Australians, two Canadians, one German, three Indians, two Indonesians, one Icelander, four Irish, one Israeli, 16 Malaysians, two from Myanmar, 23 New Zealanders, five Filipinos, 41 from Singapore, one South Korean, two Spaniards, 47 from the United Kingdom and four from the United States.

“It went from no turbulence… no plane shaking at all, and then I hit the roof. All of a sudden, I was up like that. My son was thrown down on the floor two rows behind me. I heard that there was a guy hitting the roof in the toilet and he was injured quite badly, too,” the man said.

British passenger Andrew Davies told Sky News that the seatbelt sign was illuminated but crew members didn’t have time to take their seats.

“Every single cabin crew person I saw was injured in some way or another, maybe with a gash on their head,” Davies said. “One had a bad back, who was in obvious pain.”

Dzafran Azmir, a 28-year-old student on the flight, told ABC News: “Some people hit their heads on the baggage cabins overhead and dented it. They hit the places where lights and masks are (kept) and broke straight through it.”

Azmir also said that passengers “from across the aisle going completely horizontal, hitting the ceiling and landing back down in really awkward positions”.

Photos and videos shared on social media showed oxygen masks and panels hanging from the ceiling, dents in the overhead cabin panels and luggage and food items strewn around.

“Suddenly there was a very dramatic drop so everyone seated and not wearing a seatbelt was launched immediately into the ceiling,” Azmir further added.

The Boeing 777 descended 6,000 feet (around 1,800 metres) in about three minutes, Singapore Airlines said in a statement Tuesday.

FlightRadar24 citing tracking data showed that the flight was initially cruising at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,300 metres), but at one point the Boeing 777-300ER suddenly and sharply descended to 31,000 feet (9,400 metres) over about three minutes. The aircraft then remained at 31,000 feet (9,400 metres) for under 10 minutes before diverting and landing in Bangkok less than a half-hour later.

Most people associate turbulence with heavy storms, but the most dangerous type is so-called clear air turbulence. Wind shear can occur in wispy cirrus clouds or even in clear air near thunderstorms, as differences in temperature and pressure create powerful currents of fast-moving air.

“We are very sorry for the traumatic experience that everyone on board SQ321 went through,” the airline’s CEO, Goh Choon Phong, said in a video on social media. He said the airline was providing all necessary support and pledged it would fully cooperate in investigations.

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