Passengers from the turbulence-hit Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 greet their family members upon arrival at Changi Airport in Singapore on Wednesday morning. The scheduled London-Singapore flight made an emergency landing on Tuesday in Bangkok, Thailand, after hitting sudden extreme turbulence. ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP
SINGAPORE — More than 140 passengers and crew members from a Singapore Airlines flight hit by heavy turbulence that left dozens injured and one dead finally reached Singapore on a relief flight on Wednesday morning after an emergency landing in Bangkok.
The scheduled London-Singapore Flight 321 on a Boeing 777-300ER plane diverted to Bangkok after the plane was buffeted by turbulence that flung passengers and crew around the cabin, slamming some into the ceiling.
A 73-year-old British passenger died of a suspected heart attack, and at least 30 people were injured.
"I saw people from across the aisle going completely horizontal, hitting the ceiling and landing back down, in, like really awkward positions. People, like, getting massive gashes in the head, concussions," Dzafran Azmir, a 28-year-old student onboard the flight, told Reuters after arriving in Singapore.
Photographs from the interior of the plane showed gashes in the overhead cabin panels, oxygen masks and panels hanging from the ceiling and luggage strewn around. A passenger said some people's heads had slammed into the lights above the seats and broken the panels.
Singapore Airlines took 131 passengers and 12 crew members on the relief flight from Bangkok, which reached Singapore just before 5 am. There were 211 passengers, including many Australians, British and Singaporeans, and 18 crew members onboard the original flight. The injured and their families remained in Bangkok.
The interior of the Singapore Airlines flight is pictured on Tuesday after the emergency landing at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport. Severe turbulence sent the plane, carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew members, into a sudden dive, leaving a British man dead and dozens others injured.
REUTERS
Kittipong Kittikachorn, general manager of Suvarnabhumi Airport, said on Tuesday that seven people were critically injured.
"On behalf of Singapore Airlines, I would like to express my deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of the deceased," Singapore Airlines CEO Goh Choon Phong said in a video message.
Officers from Singapore's Transport Safety Investigation Bureau arrived in Bangkok on Tuesday night, Singapore's Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat said.
As the incident involves a US company, Boeing, which makes the 777-300ER aircraft, the US National Transportation Safety Board would be sending an accredited representative and four technical advisers to support the investigation, he said.
The plane encountered sudden extreme turbulence, Goh said, and the pilot then declared a medical emergency and diverted to Bangkok.
Aircraft tracking provider Flightradar 24 said the flight encountered "a rapid change in vertical rate, consistent with a sudden turbulence event", based on flight tracking data.
