By Rebecca Tan
Robin Vochelet
and Regine Cabato
The plane was urgently diverted to Bangkok, where it landed at Suvarnabhumi Airport.
Suvarnabhumi airport general manager Kittipong Kittikachorn told reporters that the plane had fallen into an air pocket as cabin crew members were serving breakfast before hitting turbulence and then making an emergency landing in Thailand.
He added that an unnamed 73-year-old British man died during the incident, likely of a heart attack. By Tuesday evening, emergency crews said they had taken the injured people to medical facilities. At least 18 were hospitalized, they said.
More than a quarter of the passengers were Australian, said Singapore Airlines. Forty-one were from Singapore, 16 from Malaysia and 47 from the United Kingdom. Four Americans were on board. At Singapore’s Changi Airport late Tuesday night, a Singapore Airlines representative told reporters that a flight was being chartered for uninjured passengers to continue their journey to Singapore.
Dzafran Azmir, a 28-year-old student, said he was on the plane during the flight. He told Reuters: “Suddenly the aircraft starts tilting up … and very suddenly there was a very dramatic drop so everyone seated and not wearing a seat belt was launched immediately into the ceiling. Some people hit their heads on the baggage cabins overhead.”
Singapore Airlines offered condolences to the deceased man’s family. “We deeply apologise for the traumatic experience that our passengers and crew members suffered on this flight,” the company said in a statement, which noted that 30 individuals were receiving treatment in hospitals.
“We are working with the local authorities in Thailand to provide the necessary medical assistance, and sending a team to Bangkok to provide any additional assistance needed,” the airline said. Singapore Airlines declined to answer questions.
Singaporean Minister of Transport Chee Hong Tat said he also was “deeply saddened” to learn of the incident. The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, which regulates the aviation industry, did not respond to requests for comment.
Clear air turbulence, which refers to violent and sudden shifts in air that are nearly invisible, has been increasing because of changes in climate caused by rising carbon emissions, research shows. Scientists at Reading University in the United Kingdom found in a study published last year that the duration of severe turbulence on one North Atlantic route had risen 55 percent between 1979 and 2020.
Deaths caused by turbulence are extremely rare but have increased, Paul Williams, co-author of the Reading University study, said in a statement. “Our latest future projections indicate a doubling or trebling of severe turbulence in the jet streams in the coming decades, if the climate continues to change as we expect,” he said.
He added that a “detailed analysis of the meteorological circumstances” of this incident would take some time.
In 2022, nearly two dozen people aboard a Hawaiian Airlines flight bound for Honolulu were brought to emergency rooms because of injuries suffered during turbulence. Last year, flights bound for Frankfurt and Dubai also hit bouts of turbulence that caused injuries among passengers and crew.
Singapore Airlines is one of the world’s top-ranked airlines, and it has had a robust safety record. Its last major incident was in 2000, when a flight took off from the wrong runway in Taiwan, crashing into construction equipment and killing 83 people on board.
According to the World Airliner Census from FlightGlobal, Singapore Airlines has one of the largest fleets of Boeing 777s, a large twin-engine jet often used for long-haul routes.
Boeing, the plane’s manufacturer, said in a statement Tuesday that it is in contact with Singapore Airlines and “stand[s] ready to support them.” It added that “we extend our deepest condolences to the family who lost a loved one, and our thoughts are with the passengers and crew.”
