Singapore Airlines plane made 'dramatic drop,' people flung into lockers, say passengers

Rattled travelers and crew landed in Singapore on Wednesday after a terrifying high-altitude plunge on a flight from London during which an elderly passenger died and more than 80 people were injured.

Singapore Airlines said the flight encountered sudden extreme turbulence over the Irrawaddy Basin at around 11,278 meters about 10 hours after departure.

Malaysian student Dzafran Azmir, 28, braced himself and checked he had his seatbelt on. He did. Many of the other passengers did not, he told Reuters.

"Suddenly 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," Azmir said.

"People dropped to the ground, my phone flew out of my hand and went a couple aisles to the side, people's shoes flung about," he added.

According to Azmir, the crew and people inside the lavatories were hurt the most.

"We discovered people just on the ground not able to get up. There were a lot of spinal and head injuries," he told Reuters.

Photos from inside the plane show the cabin in chaos, strewn with food, drinks bottles and luggage, and with oxygen masks dangling from the ceiling.

A passenger told Reuters that some people's heads had slammed into the lights above the seats and broken the panels.

Andrew Davies, another passenger, posted about his experience on X and wrote, "The seatbelt sign came on; I put on my seatbelt straightaway, then the plane just dropped."

"So many injured people, head lacerations, bleeding ears," he wrote on X, adding that a female passenger was screaming in pain.

Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong sent his "deepest condolences" to the family and loved ones of the deceased man – identified as Geoff Kitchen, a musical theater director from near Bristol.

The city-state is sending investigators to Bangkok to probe the incident and Wong posted on Facebook that they were "working closely with Thai authorities."

Of the passengers, 56 were Australians, 47 British and 41 Singaporeans, according to the airline.

Scientists have long warned that climate change is likely to increase so-called clear air turbulence, which is invisible to radar.

A 2023 study found the annual duration of clear air turbulence increased 17 percent from 1979 to 2020, with the most severe cases increasing more than 50 percent.

(With input from agencies)