by BANGKOK (AP) – Singapore Airlines said a relief plane flew into Singapore early Wednesday morning with most of the passengers on board a flight hit by severe turbulence over the Indian Ocean that had to make an emergency landing in Bangkok after one man died. and many people were injured.
The airline said 143 passengers arrived in the city state shortly after 5 am
The airline’s chief executive, Goh Choon Phong, said an additional 79 passengers and six crew members remained in Bangkok, including the 71 who were hospitalized Wednesday morning. The airline told the Associated Press that a second relief flight was planned.
The airline’s Flight SQ321 was flying from London’s Heathrow airport to Singapore, with 211 passengers and 18 crew members on board, when it hit the turbulence on Tuesday, bashing people around inside the plane. The Boeing 777 descended 6,000 feet (about 1,800 meters) in about three minutes, the carrier said on Tuesday.
“We deeply regret the traumatic experience everyone on board SQ321 went through,” Goh said in a video on social media. He said the airline was providing all necessary support and promised to cooperate fully with investigations.
An airport official said the 73-year-old British man who died may have had a heart attack, although this has not been confirmed.
Thai officials withheld the man’s name, but British media identified him as Geoff Kitchen, who was on holiday with his wife. She was among the passengers taken to the hospital in Bangkok
Kitchen was described as having previously worked in the insurance industry, having retired to continue his involvement in amateur theatre.
The Thornbury Musical Theater Group, with whom he worked, said he was always a gentleman of the utmost honesty and integrity and always did what was right for the group.
Goh and her family, some with tears of joy and relief, welcomed passengers arriving at Changi Airport in Singapore on Wednesday. They were taken out and did not speak to the media.
Officials from the British and Malaysian embassies in Bangkok visited Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital on Wednesday to check on the injured. British officials were taken to the ninth floor, which houses the hospital’s intensive care unit as well as pediatric surgery and bone marrow transplant wards. Hospital officials said 61 injured people were being treated there and 10 were transferred to other hospitals in their network.
Malaysia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said nine of that country’s citizens, including a staff member, were being treated at Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital and three at Samitivej Sukhumvit Hospital. “According to the two hospitals, they all suffered physical and internal injuries, with one in a critical but stable condition,” he said in a statement.
Describing the accident, British passenger Andrew Davies told Sky News that the seat belt sign had been illuminated but crew members had not had time to take their seats.
“Every cabin crew I saw was injured in some way or another, maybe with a gash on the head,” Davies said. “One of them had a bad back, which was in obvious pain.”
Dzafran Azmir, a 28-year-old student who was on the flight, told ABC News: “Some people hit their heads on the overhead luggage cabins and got dented. They hit the places where there are lights and masks and they broke right through.”
Kittipong Kittikachorn, general manager of Suvarnabhumi Airport, said the sudden collapse occurred as food was being served to passengers. He said at least seven passengers were seriously injured. The British man appeared to have suffered a heart attack but medical authorities would have to confirm that, he said.
Tracking data captured by FlightRadar24 and analyzed by The Associated Press shows Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 cruising at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,300 meters).
At one point, the Boeing 777-300ER descended suddenly and sharply to 31,000 feet (9,400 meters) over about three minutes, according to the data. The aircraft then remained at 31,000 feet (9,400 meters) for less than 10 minutes before diverting and landing in Bangkok less than half an hour later.
Most people associate turbulence with heavy storms, but the most dangerous type is so-called clear air turbulence. Wind shear can occur in wispy cirrus clouds or even in clear air near thunderstorms, as temperature and pressure differences create powerful currents of fast-moving air.
According to a 2021 report from the US National Transportation Safety Board, turbulence accounted for 37.6% of all accidents on larger commercial airlines between 2009 and 2018. The Federal Aviation Administration, another US government agency, said United, there were 146 serious injuries from turbulence from 2009 to 2021.
Boeing offered its condolences to the family of the dead man and said it was in contact with Singapore Airlines “and is ready to support them.”
The widebody Boeing 777 is a workhorse of the aviation industry, used primarily for long-haul flights by airlines around the world. The 777-300ER version of the twin-engine, twin-axle plane is larger and can carry more passengers than earlier models.
Singapore Airlines, the city-state’s flag carrier, operates 22 aircraft as part of its fleet of more than 140 planes. The airline’s parent company is majority-owned by Singapore’s government investment conglomerate Temasek and also operates the budget airline Scoot.
Singapore Airlines said the nationalities of the passengers were 56 Australians, two Canadians, one German, three Indians, two Indonesians, one Icelandic, four Irish, one Israeli, 16 Malaysians, two from Myanmar, 23 New Zealanders, five Filipinos, 41 from Singapore. , one from South Korea, two Spaniards, 47 from the United Kingdom and four from the United States.
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Associated Press writer Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this report.
