Passengers describe blood 'everywhere' during deadly turbulence; 20 remain in ICU
Passengers on board a Singapore Airlines flight that hit “severe turbulence” have described their terror as the plane dropped hundreds of feet before it leveled off and made an emergency landing in Bangkok.
“I saw people from across the aisle just going completely horizontal, hitting the ceiling and landing back down in really awkward positions,” Dzafran Azmir, 28, told Reuters on Wednesday.
Azmir, a student, added that people were “getting massive gashes in the head” as the Boeing 777-300ER making its way from London to Singapore dropped in the sky.
One passenger, widely identified in the British media as Geoff Kitchen, 73, died.
Without naming the passenger, Kittipong Kittikachorn, general manager of Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, said Tuesday the person had some medical problems that could have led to a fatal cardiac arrest.
Passenger Andrew Davies, 54, told Reuters, “It was obvious the gentleman needed some help.” He said medics conducted CPR for about 20 minutes.
Bangkok’s Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital said in a statement Wednesday that it was still treating 58 people and that 20 patients remained in intensive care. In total, it said, 104 people were treated. Singapore Airlines said the flight was carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew members. Among those treated was British passenger Josh Silverstone, 24, who told The Associated Press that he had chipped a tooth and suffered cuts to his eye and his neck. “There were lots of people in worse positions than me. People were laying out on the floor, and they couldn’t move. They were completely paralyzed,” he said.
Praising the cabin crew, Davies said he saw many of them had been injured. One, he said, “was in an awful lot of pain with his back. But he continued serving people and helping people and getting medical help as much as he was able to.”
After the plane set off at 10:38 p.m. London time (5:38 p.m. ET) Monday, its journey appeared to be uneventful, according to the flight-tracking site FlightAware.But about 10 hours in, the plane dropped sharply from a cruising altitude. In one sudden lurch, it dropped almost 700 feet. Less than 10 minutes later, it began its descent into Bangkok.
The weather forecasting service AccuWeather reported rapidly developing, explosive thunderstorms near the flight path.
Photos and videos posted by passengers from inside the plane shortly after the incident showed overhead panels ripped off and food, bottles and personal possessions strewn around the cabin. One video showed a bloodstain smeared on the ceiling.“Heads had literally pushed through and broken plastic panels, and, like, there was just, there’s blood and there’s bits and pieces just broken everywhere,” said Azmir, the student.
Singapore Airlines CEO Goh Choon Phong apologized “for the trauma experienced by all passengers and crew members on this flight” in a video posted to Facebook. He added that he wanted to express his “deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of the deceased passenger.”
Officers from Singapore’s Transport Safety Investigation Bureau were investigating, Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat said Wednesday on Facebook.
Because the plane was manufactured by Boeing, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board was sending an accredited representative and four technical advisers to support the investigation, he added.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
