Passengers who were on a flight that was forced to make an emergency landing in Bangkok yesterday afternoon after encountering severe air turbulence arrived at Changi Airport in Singapore this morning, with almost all briskly escorted out of the baggage collection area by Singapore Airlines staff.
The Straits Times reported that there were hugs and some tears as they reunited with worried family members and loved ones, and airport staff or personnel wearing Singapore Airlines vests ushered them to the arrival pick-up point.
Their uneventful departure from the airport was a stark contrast to the ordeal that the passengers had experienced the day before, when SQ321 experienced sudden extreme turbulence over the Irrawaddy Basin about 10 hours after departing from London.
The turbulence caused one death, a 73-year-old British man, and injured dozens of passengers, and the pilot made an emergency landing at Thailand’s Suvarnabhumi Airport.
SIA said in a Facebook post on May 22 that 131 passengers and 12 crew members who were on board SQ321 arrived in Singapore via a relief flight at 5.05am. They were received by SIA chief executive Goh Choon Phong.
Another 79 passengers and six crew members from SQ321 remain in Bangkok, said SIA. This includes those receiving medical care, as well as their family members and loved ones who were on the flight.
The man who dies after severe turbulence onboard a Singapore Airlines flight from Heathrow has been named as Geoffrey Kitchen, a musical theatre director from Gloucestershire.
Another British passenger, Jerry, was traveling with six other family members to a wedding in Australia on the ill-fated SQ321 Singapore Airlines flight.
“…A bit of turbulence and suddenly the plane plunged. I don’t know how far…. They said 6,000 feet. It didn’t seem like 6,000 feet, but it was a long way and so sudden. There was no warning at all,” he told BBC News at a Bangkok hospital where he received treatment for head injury.
