The shock was enormous: one 73-year-old British man died and dozens injured, some seriously, on the flight Singapore Airlines headed from London to Singapore forced to make an emergency landing in Bangkok after suddenly losing altitude (1,900 meters in three minutes). What happened left its mark on the crew members and passengers who, once they finally arrived on land, recounted the seconds of panic and the apocalyptic scenes they experienced on board.
Passengers’ testimonies
“It turned on signal of my seat belt, I just had time to put it on and the plane fell. Many people were injured, including the stewards who were stoic and did everything they could,” London passenger Andrew Davies told X. The loss of altitude was so intense, unstoppable and sudden that everything flew into the air: those who were sitting without their seat belts on violently hit their heads with the panel above. “Passengers’ personal effects – Davies tweeted – they were scattered everywhere, coffee and water were splashed on the ceiling. There were many injured with lacerations to the head and ears bloody. A lady was screaming in pain from a back injury. I couldn’t help her, I just got her some water”.
At the Reutersa young 28-year-old student, Dzafran Azmir, remembers perfectly that suddenly “it started to rear up and there was like a trembling”. Immediately afterwards, the plane fell downwards, described as dramatic. “Everyone who was sitting without their belts was thrown towards the ceiling. Some people have slammed their heads on the overhead bins and have dented them, others have broken the bulkheads of lights and oxygen masks”.
The young man also said he rescued the British man deceased on board. “That gentleman was sitting right behind me. Many people needed help, but we took care of this gentleman and I helped carry him, get him out of his seat and onto the floor so some medical professionals could administer CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, ed.).”
The expert’s explanation
What is mistakenly considered an “air vacuum” is nothing more than a strong downward current (from top to bottom) so violent that it pushes a Boeing down in just a few seconds. Simon Proud, a meteorologist who works at ESA (European Space Agency) explained that in the transit area of the plane there was “a convective cell” That “it rose very rapidly, going from 20,000 to over 53,000 feet in ten minutes.” It is a storm cloud whose vertical development, during its formation, made it grow so many in a short time: from around six thousand meters high to almost 16 thousand metres. “This dynamics may have caused significant turbulence“.
On board flight SQ321 there were mostly Malaysian, Australian, British and Singaporean passengers: no Italians were present. The photos released on social media show the interiors completely turned upside down not only by cups, food, plates and numerous objects belonging to passengers and the hostess and steward staff but also by all the oxygen masks, hundreds of them, dangling from the ceiling.
Also significant is the photo of a hostess with a bloody face and the face of her colleague pale white and with the terror of what she experienced in those dramatic minutes in her eyes.
