Panic on London-Singapore flight: one death and dozens injured due to severe turbulence (video)

One death and dozens of injuries, seven in critical condition, are the tragic consequences of a flight on a Singapore Airlines plane on the London-Singapore route, which made an emergency landing in Bangkok (Thailand) yesterday.

While in Thai airspace, a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777-300ER encountered a serious problem. tells CNN Greece. A scheduled flight was diverted to Bangkok after the plane flew through severe turbulence. The shaking was so strong that passengers were thrown around the cabin, some of them hitting their heads on the ceiling.

Singapore's Transport Safety Investigations Bureau (TSIB) is investigating the incident, and the US National Transportation Safety Board has sent representatives to support passengers. After the emergency landing at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok, it was revealed that dozens of travelers were injured, one died, and may have died. from a heart attack. Reuters reports this.

Kitipong Airport general manager Kitikatsorn told a news conference that the 73-year-old British man died, possibly of a heart attack. Seven of those seriously injured had traumatic brain injuries. One crew member is also undergoing treatment.

Today at about five o'clock in the morning the Boeing 777 arrived in Singapore. The passengers silently left the plane, not paying attention to the reporters who were waiting for details of the emergency.

Malaysian student Dzafran Azmir, who was on board flight SQ321, said agency Reuters that there was no warning of chaos inside the plane. With three hours remaining on the flight from London to Singapore, everyone was alarmed as the Boeing lurched and then shook violently. The 28-year-old man checked that he was wearing his seat belt. According to him, many other passengers unfastened him. Azmir says:

“Suddenly there was a very sharp fall, and those without seat belts were thrown towards the ceiling, some hit their heads on the luggage compartment above, leaving dents, hitting the lights and masks, and breaking them. People fell, my mobile phone fell out of my hands and flew two rows to the side, people's shoes were flying. The crew and those in the toilets were seriously injured, we found them lying, unable to get up. There were multiple injuries to the spine and head.”

In total, at least 30 people were injured. The plane's captain said they would make an emergency landing in Bangkok, Thailand. After landing, paramedics examined the victims. “I don’t think they realized how bad things were,” Azmir said. Ambulances later arrived and he said he saw at least eight people on stretchers. According to him, on evacuation the plane took 90 minutes.

Sudden turbulence began over the Ayeyarwaddy Basin in Myanmar about 10 hours into the flight, the airline said. As Reuters notes, turbulence has many causes, the most obvious of which is unstable weather conditions. On this flight, the cause could be so-called clear air turbulence, which is very difficult to detect, the publication said.

Aircraft crashes involving turbulence are the most common type of flight incident, according to a 2021 NTSB study.

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