“I saw people across the aisle jumping completely horizontally, hitting the ceiling and landing back in really awkward positions. People get, for example, extensive wounds on the head and concussions,” said Dzafran Azmir, a 28-year-old student on board the plane, after arriving in Singapore.
Photos from inside the plane showed cuts in the upper cabin panels, oxygen masks and panels hanging from the ceiling, and luggage strewn about. The passenger said several people’s heads hit the lights above the seats and penetrated the panels.
Singapore Airlines took 131 passengers and 12 crew members on the support flight from Bangkok, which arrived in Singapore just before 5 a.m. (local time). There were 211 passengers on board the original flight, including many Australians, British and Singaporeans, as well as 18 crew members; injured airmen and their families remained in Bangkok.
“On behalf of Singapore Airlines, I would like to express my sincerest condolences to the family and loved ones of the deceased,” Singapore Airlines CEO Goh Choon Phong said in a video message.
Singapore Transport Safety Investigation Bureau officers arrived in Bangkok on Tuesday evening, Singapore Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat said in a statement on Facebook.
Because the incident involves US company Boeing, which produces the 777-300ER aircraft, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) sent an accredited representative and four technical advisers to support the investigation, he said.
Goh said the plane encountered sudden, extreme turbulence, after which the pilot declared a medical emergency and diverted to Bangkok.
Aircraft tracking provider FlightRadar24 said the flight encountered a “rapid change in vertical speed, consistent with a sudden turbulence event” at around 07:49 GMT, based on flight tracking data.
“At that time, storms were raging in the area, sometimes violent,” he added.
The weather forecast service AccuWeather said Tuesday that rapidly developing, explosive thunderstorms near Flight 321’s flight path likely contributed to the violent turbulence.
“Developing thunderstorms are often characterized by strong updrafts, which is a zone of rising air that rises very quickly, sometimes at speeds in excess of 100 mph, and can leave pilots little time to react if it happens directly in front of an aircraft ” said Dan DePodwin, Senior Director of Forecasting at AccuWeather.
According to the airline, sudden turbulence occurred over the Irrawaddy Basin in Myanmar about 10 hours after the flight took off.
“Large storms in the Bay of Bengal are not uncommon. There is always a risk of a mishap,” said an airline pilot who repeatedly flies to Singapore and Southeast Asia. The pilot declined to discover himself because he is just not authorized to refer to the media.
“Two days ago, en path to Singapore, we were diverted about 30 miles (48 km) around storms,” the pilot added.
According to a 2021 NTSB study, turbulence-related aircraft accidents are essentially the most common style of accident.
The airline said 30 people were injured, but Samitivej Hospital in Thailand said it was treating 71 passengers.
Between 2009 and 2018, the U.S. agency found that turbulence was the explanation for greater than one-third of reported aviation accidents, and most of them resulted in at the least one serious injury but didn’t cause damage to the aircraft.
“Turbulence might be unexpected and occur anywhere. Always wear seat belts, even when the sign is off,” the US regulator FAA said on Wednesday (earlier on Twitter) in response to the Singapore Airlines incident.
Singapore Airlines, which is well known as one among the world’s leading airlines and a benchmark for much of the industry, has not had any major incidents in recent times.
The most up-to-date accident leading to casualties was a flight from Singapore to Los Angeles via Taipei, where it crashed at Taoyuan International Airport in Taiwan on October 31, 2000, killing 83 of 179 people on board.
Shares of Singapore Airlines weren’t traded on Wednesday because of a public holiday in Singapore.
