UNo one died and 30 others were injured on a Singapore Airlines plane that experienced severe turbulence during its journey from London to Singapore and had to make an emergency landing in Bangkok on Tuesday.
Flight tracking data indicates the Boeing fell more than 1,800 meters in just five minutes over the Andaman Sea.
Andrew Davies, a British passenger on board, told BBC Radio 5 that the plane had “suddenly gone down” and there had been “very little warning”.
“In the few seconds after the plane went down, we heard a terrible scream and what sounded like a thud,” he said. He described seeing people with head lacerations and bleeding ears.
Flight SQ321 took off from London’s Heathrow Airport and encountered “severe turbulence” en route, Singapore Airlines said.
“We can confirm that there are injuries and one death on board the Boeing 777-300ER. There were a total of 211 passengers and 18 crew members,” the airline said on Facebook.
Kittipong Kittikachorn, director of Suvarnabhumi Airport, said the passenger who died was a 73-year-old British man.
He added that most of the injured suffered from head impacts and seven of them were in critical condition.
Of the passengers, 56 were Australian, 47 British and 41 Singaporean, the airline said.
A total of 30 passengers and crew members suffered injuries in the incident, Singapore Airlines and the airport reported.
Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital in Bangkok said a total of 71 people had been treated, including six seriously injured.
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