A Singapore Airlines plane heading to Singapore encountered severe turbulence and had to make an emergency landing in Bangkok, Thailand. It has been revealed that the majority of passengers who were seriously injured during this incident require spinal surgery.
According to Newsis and Bangkok Post on the 23rd, Thai hospital authorities stated that most of the passengers who were seriously injured during the flight on the 21st, which encountered severe turbulence and made an emergency landing in Bangkok, will require spinal surgery.
The flight had 211 passengers and 18 crew members on the plane. A 73-year-old British man died onboard, and the cause of death is presumed to be a heart attack.
Bangkok Samitivej Hospital, which treated the injured, revealed that 79 passengers and 6 crew members were treated at three medical institutions the previous day.
The hospital stated, “We treated 104 passengers related to the plane accident. Around 58 are still hospitalized and 27 have been discharged.” They further explained, “Among the 211 passengers and 18 crew members, 20 are still in the intensive care unit, including 6 Britons and 6 Malaysians.”
There was only one Korean passenger on board, who was treated in a general ward for muscle pain and expected to be discharged later in the day.
The plane that crashed encountered turbulence over the Irrawaddy Delta in Myanmar about 10 hours after takeoff and plummeted about 5,905 feet in about 3 minutes. The cause of the turbulence is not clear.
From Calm to Chaos
Jerry, a British passenger, explained the situation in an interview with the BBC, “There was no warning before the plane plummeted. My wife and I hit our heads on the ceiling, and some passengers walking in the aisle were thrown into the air.” He added, “We were lucky that none of our family members died.”
Although there were no noticeable accident traces outside the plane that made an emergency landing in Bangkok, the interior was completely chaotic.
The released photos showed emergency oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling, and items including food and luggage scattered on the floor.
According to a 2021 report by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, turbulence accounted for 37.6% of the causes of large commercial aircraft accidents from 2009 to 2018. The Federal Aviation Administration also stated that 146 people were seriously injured due to turbulence between 2009 and 2021.
Meanwhile, Singapore authorities started investigating the accident involving the Singapore Airlines passenger plane on the 23rd.
Chee Hong Tat, Minister of Transport of Singapore, shared on social media that investigators from the Transport Safety Investigation Bureau had arrived in Bangkok. He explained that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) of the United States is also dispatching technical advisors and others to support the investigation because the passenger plane that made an emergency landing is a Boeing Company 777-300ER model.
The authorities plan to investigate the circumstances and causes of the accident in which the SQ321 flight from London, UK to Singapore encountered turbulence and plummeted.
The Boeing Company also stated that it is in contact with Singapore Airlines and is ready to provide support.
