There was little warning of the chaos that was to come as passengers on Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 relaxed with just three hours to Singapore after a long haul flight from London. But as the Boeing 777-300R soared above Myanmar it suddenly hit extreme turbulence, wildly throwing passengers, flight attendants and meals around the cabin. “Suddenly the aircraft starts tilting up and there was shaking,” Malaysian student Dzafran Azmir said.
The 28-year-old braced himself and checked he had his seatbelt on. He did. Many of the other passengers did not, he said.
“There was a very dramatic drop so everyone seated and not wearing seatbelt was launched immediately into the ceiling, some people hit their heads on the baggage cabins overhead and dented it, they hit the places where lights and masks are and broke straight through it.” One passenger died of a suspected heart attack and dozens were injured after the flight encountered what the airline described as sudden extreme turbulence around 10 hours into the journey. “ I remember the objects flying, the tightness of my waist from the seatbelt, which was obviously holding me in place,” said Andrew Davies who had just put his belt on after the seatbelt sign illuminated during what had been a “perfectly normal” flight.
There was screaming and a lady with a bleeding head wound, he said. The flight experienced “a rapid change in vertical rate, consistent with a sudden turbulence event” at 0749 GMT, flight data pro.
