Photo: Collected
Rattled travellers and crew landed in Singapore Wednesday (22 May) after a terrifying high-altitude plunge on a flight from London during which an elderly passenger died and more than 80 were injured.
Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 hit "sudden extreme turbulence" over Myanmar 10 hours into its journey on Tuesday, abruptly rising and plunging several times. One passenger said people were thrown around the cabin so violently they put dents in the ceiling during the drama at 11,300 metres (37,000 feet), leaving dozens with head injuries. Photos from inside the plane show the cabin in chaos, strewn with food, drinks bottles and luggage, and with oxygen masks dangling from the ceiling.
The plane, carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew, made an emergency landing at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport, where medical staff used gurneys to ferry the injured to ambulances waiting on the tarmac.
A 73-year-old British man died, while Bangkok's Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital said late Tuesday 71 people had been sent for treatment -- six of them seriously injured.
The airport in the Thai capital said 83 passengers and crew were hurt. A relief flight carrying 131 passengers and 12 crew landed at Singapore's Changi Airport on Wednesday morning. Relieved relatives greeted the arrivals with hugs but all were too shaken to talk to waiting reporters.
Andrew Davies, a British passenger aboard the Boeing 777-300ER, told BBC radio that the plane "suddenly dropped" and there was "very little warning".
"During the few seconds of the plane dropping, there was an awful screaming and what sounded like a thud," he said, adding that he helped a woman who was "screaming in agony" with a "gash on her head".
Separately, he told a BBC podcast he feared the plane was going to crash. "Remembering the plane now -- the huge dents in the roof that people had obviously hit with their head. There was a water bottle stuck in a gap in the ceiling," he said.
Messenger/Disha
