One person has died and several others injured when a Singapore Airlines flight from London to Singapore was hit by severe turbulence, the airline says.
The Boeing 777-300ER was diverted to Bangkok, Thailand, where it made an emergency landing at 3:45pm (08:45 GMT) on Tuesday. Flight SQ321 “encountered severe turbulence en route”, Singapore Airlines said in a statement on its Facebook page.
“We can confirm that there are injuries and one fatality on board the Boeing 777-300ER.”
There were 211 passengers and 18 crew members on board.
After about 11 hours of flying time, the aircraft sharply dropped from an altitude of about 37,000 feet (11,278 metres) to 31,000 feet (9,449 metres) within five minutes as it crossed the Andaman Sea and neared Thailand, according to FlightRadar 24 data.
“Suddenly the aircraft starts tilting up and there was shaking so I started bracing for what was happening, and very suddenly there was a very dramatic drop so everyone seated and not wearing seatbelt was launched immediately into the ceiling,” Dzafran Azmir, a 28-year-old student passenger, told the Reuters news agency.
“Some people hit their heads on the baggage cabins overhead and dented it, they hit the places where lights and masks are and broke straight through it,” Azmir said.
Credit: aljazeera.com
