PEOPLE screaming as they are flung into the air, cabin crew tending to seriously injured passengers, and pilots desperately wrestling with their controls to save the day.
It sounds like a scene from a disaster movie, but this nightmare became reality on May 21, 2024, when turbulence had devastating consequences for a Singapore Airlines flight above Myanmar.
The aircraft dropped suddenly, flinging passengers and crew up into the ceiling and around the cabin, with dozens suffering horrific injuries to their heads and spines.
And tragically 73-year-old British passenger Geoffrey Kitchen died after suffering a suspected heart attack.
Now a new ITV film, Turbulence: How safe is your flight?, has analysed minute by minute exactly what happened on Flight SQ321, with passengers sharing their terrifying stories of the traumatic event for the very first time.
And it delves into the causes of turbulence and the new innovations that are keeping us safe at 36,000ft.
Emma Read, the film’s executive producer, tells us: “I’m not even sure they had time to be terrified. It was complete survival mode from the word go.
“The event in which 71 people were so badly injured they had to be hospitalised and one man sadly died… all of that happened within seconds. It was less than a minute, such is the power of entering into this clear air turbulence.
“The pilots don’t know it is coming, suddenly you are in it. Some of the people that we spoke to who experienced it, afterwards the actual trauma of it was big.
“The sheer level of injury, the damage to the cabin and the debris that was flying around, there was nobody that was left unscathed.”
Flight SQ321 was flying from London to Singapore, but what began as a very ordinary journey was quickly to turn into one of the most harrowing experiences of the passengers’ and crews’ lives.
British passenger Andrew Davies says: “I got into my seat. The chap next to me made conversation as often happens. Little did I know that, you know, a few hours later I’d be sharing such an awful experience with him.”
The plane was about 90 minutes from landing in Singapore with passengers waking up and stretching their legs or going to the bathroom while the crew prepared to serve breakfast.
This fatefully meant that many were not wearing their seatbelts – unaware of the danger that lay ahead.
The plane hit severe clear air turbulence – impossible for the pilots to predict – and the plane shot upwards.
The pilots immediately switched on the fasten seat belt signs and deployed the air brakes as the aircraft had picked up speed.
But suddenly it hit more turbulence and plummeted 178ft in less than five seconds.
The passengers who hadn’t had time to belt up were thrown up to the ceiling at high speed, causing carnage in the cabin.
Andrew Davies recalls: “I remember the airplane going up… and the engines roared. It was just so obvious early on that this was something out of the ordinary.
“And then, literally at the moment my seatbelt was fastened, the plane just simply dropped.
“My feet flew up into the air in front of me. I felt straining around my waist where the seat belt was digging in. My iPad hit me on the head as it as it passed.
“I looked behind me to see how everybody else was. And that was when the scale of it really hit me.
“Lots of people, with the most horrendous gashes on their heads. Blood pouring down their heads.”
Husband and wife Ali and Ramiza Bukhar were also on the flight.
Ali says: “My wife she was having a panic attack. I was just trying to comfort her. I just tell her that everything’s going to be okay, but internally, I was just trying to also accept that we might not make it.”
Ramiza adds: “We thought it was the end for us. I remember my life just flashed in front of my eyes and I looked at my husband, and I just saw the terror on his face.”
Many of the crew were also injured, but their training kicked in. Their first instinct was to restore order and help their injured passengers – particularly Geoffrey Kitchen, who was clearly struggling.
Fighting back tears, Andrew explains: “The Singapore Airlines cabin crew were only interested in helping other people. They put themselves second and did what they could for everybody else who was badly injured.”
The skilled pilots somehow managed to regain control of the flight so it could make a safe emergency landing in Bangkok, allowing the 104 injured passengers and crew emergency treatment.
Turbulence is caused when something disrupts the smooth flow of the air.
Common causes include flying into a storm or over mountain ranges, or strong air currents in the jet stream becoming unstable and generating an invisible kind of turbulence – which is what happened to the Singapore airlines flight.
Experts say years of training will have prepared them for exactly this rare incident and their professional instincts would have kicked in immediately.
Andras Galfy, CEO of Austrian company Turbulence Solutions, which is developing technology to counteract the effects of turbulence on aircraft, says: “The situation for the pilots of the Singapore Airlines flight was pretty challenging.
“It was a rather calm flight then there was this huge impact. So they had only a small amount of time to prepare the cabin.
“Just imagine you’re driving a car and you have a perfect road and you’re going full speed, everything’s perfect, and all of a sudden you have very bad condition on the pavement. This, I think, gives you some relation to how difficult and challenging it was for the pilots.”
Professor Guy Gratton, associate professor of aviation and the environment at Cranfield University, adds: “When they realised the aircraft was hitting turbulence, probably the first thing they would do would be to reach up and turn on the fasten seat belts sign.
“The next thing they’re going to be doing is disengaging the autopilot, trying to get the aircraft smoothly back on to the condition it was flying.
“At that point, the pilots will be just maintaining control of the aircraft. The other thing they could do is try and do their best to steer the airplane around or under, the turbulence.
Lots of people, with the most horrendous gashes on their heads. Blood pouring down their heads
A little while later, they would be reducing altitude and changing route to get the aircraft down on to the ground and, getting medical attention for the people who were sadly injured on board the flight.”
But while the incident caused utter devastation and injury inside the plane’s cabin, passengers were shocked on exiting the plane to see that it had suffered no external damage.
“As we were led away I stood and took a photograph of the airplane,” says Andrew.
“It was quite extraordinary to see that huge piece of machinery sitting on the tarmac and to think that an hour or so earlier it had been tossed around in the air, like a doll. It was an extraordinary thing to see.”
Experts say this is proof that these huge jets are built to withstand colossal levels of turbulence.
And every newly-designed aircraft has to undergo extreme and rigorous testing to prove they are fit to fly.
Atmospheric sciences Professor Paul Williams, of Reading University, explains: “When a new aircraft model is being designed a set of tests will be conducted.
“One of those is called the wing bend test, where that is what it sounds like. You take the wings and bend them and keep bending them, and make sure they can withstand more than the strongest turbulence the aircraft is ever likely to encounter.
“I’ve heard of stories where they’ve been bent so far around that they touch each other and they make contact and they still haven’t snapped.”
These cutting edge technologies mean no amount of turbulence is going to drop a plane out of the sky.
Travel journalist Simon Calder says: “If I look out the window and I think, ‘Oh, that wing is flexing a bit’, I’m more likely to think, ‘Aren’t they brilliant, the engineers, the men and women who built these things, rather than, ‘Oh my goodness, we’re all going to die’.”
Furthermore, the experts all agree that passengers can play their own part in keeping themselves safe on board by storing all loose items in the overhead lockers and, most importantly, keeping their seatbelts fastened.
Airline captain Emma Henderson MBE says: “If you are sitting in a car, you wouldn’t just think, ‘Oh, it’s a long journey. I’m not going to keep my seatbelt on’. It just doesn’t make sense
“So why do it on an aircraft? Keep your your seatbelt fastened. It’s going to keep you safe.”
But despite what happened on the Singapore Airlines flight, experts say there has never been a safer time to fly.
Travel journalist Simon Calder says: “No passenger jet had been involved in fatal accidents at all in 2023. That’s an extraordinary achievement.
“I know that historically, aviation has never been safer.”
Turbulence: How Safe is Your Flight? airs on ITV tonight at 9pm
By Lisa Minot, Head of Travel
THE idea that a flier can be killed by turbulence will strike fear into the hearts of many who have experienced it on a flight.
Nervous fliers often cite the terrifying experience of turbulence as the reason they are so scared of taking to the skies. Even the most confident flyer can feel panic when a plane begins to rattle and roll.
But in reality, this is a relatively rare occurrence. There have been just 38 deaths in the last 15 years, with another 30 passengers and 116 crew seriously injured. Compare that to the more than 4.4billion people who take to the skies each year around the world.
Jet streams, atmospheric pressure and storms are the most common reasons for turbulence but the most dangerous is clear air turbulence as pilots have no warning and time to put seabelt signs on.
However, just three percent of flights experience light turbulence, one per cent of them get moderate episodes and mere tenths of one percent experience severe issues.
When moderate or severe turbulence does lead to injuries, it is passengers not wearing their seatbelt or standing in aisles or toilets who are most at risk.
Keeping your seatbelt on for the entire flight is the most sensible way to ensure that should the worst happen, you are taking the best precautions possible.
