The flight from London to Singapore fell into an air pocket as cabin crew served breakfast before turbulence hit. The pilots had to request an emergency landing, Kittipong Kittikachorn, general manager of Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport, told a news conference.
There were 23 New Zealanders on board the flight, Singapore Airlines confirmed.
Singapore Airlines' SQ321 service also operates under a codeshare agreement with Air New Zealand under flight number NZ3321, The New Zealand Herald reports.
The sudden turbulence occurred over Myanmar's Irrawaddy Basin about 10 hours into the flight, the airline said. The pilot declared a medical emergency and diverted the plane to Bangkok, without providing further details.
A 73-year-old British man died during the incident, likely due to a heart attack, Kittikachorn said. Seven people were seriously injured, some with head injuries. He added that the people were calm as they were led off the plane.
“Singapore Airlines extends its deepest condolences to the family of the deceased. We deeply apologize for the traumatic experience our passengers and crew suffered on this flight,” the airline said.
Some numbers of injuries among the 211 passengers and 18 crew members varied. The airline said 18 had been hospitalized and 12 were being treated in hospitals. Samitivej Hospital said it was treating 71 passengers.
Reuters could not confirm the sequence of events or whether the medical emergency occurred before the turbulence.
Photos from the interior of the plane showed large holes in the overhead cabin panels, gas masks and panels hanging from the ceiling and carry-on luggage strewn about. A passenger said some people's heads had hit the lamps above the seats and punctured the panels.
“I saw things lying everywhere and a lot of airline crew were injured” with bruises, Kittikachorn said after the most seriously injured passengers and crew were evacuated.
It was not immediately possible to reconstruct the incident from publicly available tracking data, but a FlightRadar 24 spokesperson said it analyzed data around 0749 GMT that showed the plane tilted upward and returned to its cruising altitude within a minute.
A passenger on the Boeing 777-300ER plane told Reuters that the incident involved the feeling of ascent and descent.
“Suddenly the plane started to tilt up and it started to shake, so I started to brace myself for what was happening, and very suddenly there was a very dramatic drop, so that anyone who was sitting and not wearing a seatbelt was immediately launched into the ceiling ” said Dzafran Azmir, a 28-year-old general. year-old student on board the flight told Reuters.
“Some people hit their heads on the baggage cabins above them and made a dent in them. They hit the places where there are lights and masks and broke right through them,” he said.
Kittikachorn said most of the passengers he spoke with were wearing their seat belts.
The FlightRadar 24 spokesperson said regarding data showing an altitude drop, “our initial thought is that the turbulence is occurring prior to the standard descent from 37,000 to 31,000 feet. That appears to be merely a flight level change in preparation for landing. “
Suvarnabhumi Airport said the plane requested an emergency landing at 3:35 p.m. (local time) and landed at 3:51 p.m. Uninjured passengers have disembarked and another plane will fly them on. The airline said it landed at 3:45 p.m.
Turbulence
According to a 2021 study from the National Transportation Safety Board, turbulence-related aircraft accidents are the most common type.
From 2009 through 2018, the U.S. agency found that turbulence was responsible for more than a third of reported aviation accidents, most of which resulted in one or more serious injuries but no aircraft damage.
Singapore Airlines, which is widely recognized as one of the world's leading airlines and a benchmark for much of the industry, has had no major incidents in recent years.
The last accident to cause casualties was a flight from Singapore to Los Angeles via Taipei, where it crashed into construction equipment at Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport on October 31, 2000 after attempting to take off from the wrong runway. The crash killed 83 of the 179 people on board.
Singapore Airlines has had seven accidents, according to data from the Aviation Safety Network.
Boeing BA.N said it was in contact with Singapore Airlines and was ready to provide support. It has submitted further questions to the airline and local authorities.
“We extend our deepest condolences to the family who have lost a loved one, and our thoughts are with the passengers and crew,” the statement said.
Singapore's Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB) will send investigators to Bangkok to investigate the incident.
– additional reporting RNZ