Malaysian student Dzafran Azmir did not need his seatbelt fastened, with everything going smoothly on his Singapore Airlines flight from London to Singapore, but he kept it buckled all the same.
The seatbelt sign on board SQ321 was switched off and the flight crew were serving food. People were walking around with some waiting to enter the lavatory, he told CNA938 on Wednesday (May 22).
“I think people would just relax (in such situations). I just …don't unbuckle when the sign says you can unbuckle. I just leave it on,” he said.
It meant that the 28-year-old escaped unscathed when the plane hit an extreme patch of turbulence on Tuesday, sending passengers who were not buckled in flying to the ceiling of the aircraft before slamming back down.
Mr Geoff Kitchen, a 73-year-old British man who is said to have served his local community for decades, died on the flight. Suvarnabhumi Airport general manager Kittipong Kittikachorn said a heart attack was the likely cause of death.
Mr Dzafran, who is now back home in Malaysia for his summer break, said going through the turbulence was like being on the “crest or precipice of a really tall roller coaster”.
“You have that anticipation of going up. And at that point, I felt like I needed to brace onto my belt and kind of like secure myself because at that exact moment, when the plane started pulling up and then dipping down, that's how everything just got really, really bad in the plane,” he told CNA’s Singapore Tonight on Wednesday.
Mr Dzafran initially thought it was regular turbulence and waited for the plane to get through it. However, the situation quickly became confusing when the plane started shaking more and more violently.
“The people who were unsecured, (were) just slamming straight to the top of the cabin, hitting the overhead luggage compartment or the lights and where the oxygen mask compartments would be,” he said.
Then, they were “slamming straight down on the armrests, hitting their backs, hitting their heads on something”, he said.
The plane dropped about 6,000ft (1.8km) within four minutes.
"Everything happened really in a flash," he said, adding that people immediately started gasping and screaming.
When the turbulence subsided, there was an announcement to acknowledge what had happened and a call for medical professionals who could volunteer to check on the passengers. A couple of people answered the call and made some rounds to provide some basic triage, Mr Dzafran said.
“The passengers also were told to sit down and hang tight but at the same time, amid all this chaos and confusion, I felt … that people, you know, couldn't really absorb what was to be prioritised, what was happening,” he said.
People who were not hurt were walking around looking for their phones, which had been ripped out of their hands due to the force of the turbulence, he added. They were urgently looking for a way to get in touch with their loved ones.
Mr Dzafran eventually found his phone as well.
He said he did not realise the extent of the damage and injuries until the plane made an emergency landing in Bangkok.
“These panels above our heads … They were literally broken and shattered by people's heads and bodies impacting them. You just were dazed, in some sense, to not realise what was happening,” he said.
After landing in Bangkok, medics and nurses checked on the passengers, added Mr Dzafran.
“After a while, we started seeing that they started opening up the emergency exits. People from the fire department rescue team came in and that's when the stretchers came in to help deal with the victims who had been really seriously injured - the ones who couldn't get up and couldn't walk and needed to be carried out,” he said.
“I think that's probably one of the most horrifying, also shocking moments.”
En route to Bangkok, he had no idea of how badly his fellow passengers were injured because he could only see those who appeared to have minor injuries.
The uninjured passengers disembarked, leaving behind the people with minor or moderate injuries for them to get treated, he said.
The interior of Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 is pictured after an emergency landing at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Thailand on May 21, 2024. (Photo: Reuters/Stringer)
“That was a really good approach by the airport and staff at SIA in terms of making sure that both the injured and uninjured were well taken care of, and I think it was a very smooth process overall,” he added.
While he felt anxious and exhausted over the incident, Mr Dzafran said this turned to relief when SIA’s relief flight arrived about seven to eight hours later to bring the passengers to Singapore.
“(There was a) sense of feeling that the ordeal is over. We got into that plane and we received a very comforting message from the SIA crew,” he said.
Passengers of Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 from London to Singapore, which made an emergency landing in Bangkok, greet family members upon arrival at Changi Airport in Singapore on May 22, 2024. (Photo: AFP/Roslan RAHMAN)
Mr Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor of FlightGlobal, told CNA938 that the phenomenon of clear air turbulence - a reason experts have pointed to for the violent turbulence - is not really that easy to predict, and that it can be a “very sneaky phenomenon”. His firm offers editorial coverage of the Asia-Pacific aerospace and airline sectors.
Mr Waldron said that investigators will look very carefully at what was happening with the aircraft, what was happening on the sensors and the visibility in the cockpit.
They will gather information from the cockpit voice recorder - which records discussions among the crew - and, more importantly, from the flight data recorder which is the aircraft’s main memory, he said.
“Any control inputs that have been taking place during the flight, any changes in altitude or speed, any type of control services, what the engines were doing - all those parameters are in the flight data recorder,” he said.
“(Investigators will) be able to really look at that and see kind of the trauma that the aircraft underwent during this time.”
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The seatbelt sign on board SQ321 was switched off and the flight crew were serving food. People were walking around with some waiting to enter the lavatory, he told CNA938 on Wednesday (May 22).
“I think people would just relax (in such situations). I just …don't unbuckle when the sign says you can unbuckle. I just leave it on,” he said.
It meant that the 28-year-old escaped unscathed when the plane hit an extreme patch of turbulence on Tuesday, sending passengers who were not buckled in flying to the ceiling of the aircraft before slamming back down.
Mr Geoff Kitchen, a 73-year-old British man who is said to have served his local community for decades, died on the flight. Suvarnabhumi Airport general manager Kittipong Kittikachorn said a heart attack was the likely cause of death.
“PRECIPICE OF A REALLY TALL ROLLER COASTER”
Mr Dzafran, who is now back home in Malaysia for his summer break, said going through the turbulence was like being on the “crest or precipice of a really tall roller coaster”.
“You have that anticipation of going up. And at that point, I felt like I needed to brace onto my belt and kind of like secure myself because at that exact moment, when the plane started pulling up and then dipping down, that's how everything just got really, really bad in the plane,” he told CNA’s Singapore Tonight on Wednesday.
Mr Dzafran initially thought it was regular turbulence and waited for the plane to get through it. However, the situation quickly became confusing when the plane started shaking more and more violently.
“The people who were unsecured, (were) just slamming straight to the top of the cabin, hitting the overhead luggage compartment or the lights and where the oxygen mask compartments would be,” he said.
Then, they were “slamming straight down on the armrests, hitting their backs, hitting their heads on something”, he said.
The plane dropped about 6,000ft (1.8km) within four minutes.
"Everything happened really in a flash," he said, adding that people immediately started gasping and screaming.
When the turbulence subsided, there was an announcement to acknowledge what had happened and a call for medical professionals who could volunteer to check on the passengers. A couple of people answered the call and made some rounds to provide some basic triage, Mr Dzafran said.
“The passengers also were told to sit down and hang tight but at the same time, amid all this chaos and confusion, I felt … that people, you know, couldn't really absorb what was to be prioritised, what was happening,” he said.
People who were not hurt were walking around looking for their phones, which had been ripped out of their hands due to the force of the turbulence, he added. They were urgently looking for a way to get in touch with their loved ones.
Mr Dzafran eventually found his phone as well.
LANDING IN BANGKOK
He said he did not realise the extent of the damage and injuries until the plane made an emergency landing in Bangkok.
“These panels above our heads … They were literally broken and shattered by people's heads and bodies impacting them. You just were dazed, in some sense, to not realise what was happening,” he said.
After landing in Bangkok, medics and nurses checked on the passengers, added Mr Dzafran.
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“After a while, we started seeing that they started opening up the emergency exits. People from the fire department rescue team came in and that's when the stretchers came in to help deal with the victims who had been really seriously injured - the ones who couldn't get up and couldn't walk and needed to be carried out,” he said.
“I think that's probably one of the most horrifying, also shocking moments.”
En route to Bangkok, he had no idea of how badly his fellow passengers were injured because he could only see those who appeared to have minor injuries.
The uninjured passengers disembarked, leaving behind the people with minor or moderate injuries for them to get treated, he said.
The interior of Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 is pictured after an emergency landing at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Thailand on May 21, 2024. (Photo: Reuters/Stringer)
“That was a really good approach by the airport and staff at SIA in terms of making sure that both the injured and uninjured were well taken care of, and I think it was a very smooth process overall,” he added.
While he felt anxious and exhausted over the incident, Mr Dzafran said this turned to relief when SIA’s relief flight arrived about seven to eight hours later to bring the passengers to Singapore.
“(There was a) sense of feeling that the ordeal is over. We got into that plane and we received a very comforting message from the SIA crew,” he said.
Passengers of Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 from London to Singapore, which made an emergency landing in Bangkok, greet family members upon arrival at Changi Airport in Singapore on May 22, 2024. (Photo: AFP/Roslan RAHMAN)
FLIGHT RECORDER WILL HELP INVESTIGATIONS
Mr Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor of FlightGlobal, told CNA938 that the phenomenon of clear air turbulence - a reason experts have pointed to for the violent turbulence - is not really that easy to predict, and that it can be a “very sneaky phenomenon”. His firm offers editorial coverage of the Asia-Pacific aerospace and airline sectors.
Mr Waldron said that investigators will look very carefully at what was happening with the aircraft, what was happening on the sensors and the visibility in the cockpit.
They will gather information from the cockpit voice recorder - which records discussions among the crew - and, more importantly, from the flight data recorder which is the aircraft’s main memory, he said.
“Any control inputs that have been taking place during the flight, any changes in altitude or speed, any type of control services, what the engines were doing - all those parameters are in the flight data recorder,” he said.
“(Investigators will) be able to really look at that and see kind of the trauma that the aircraft underwent during this time.”
Continue reading...