Video shows 2019 flight hitting turbulence, not Singapore Airlines plane | Fact check

Chris Mueller, USA TODAY
·3 min read

The claim: Video shows Singapore Airlines flight that hit severe turbulence in May 2024

A May 21 video (direct link, archive link) posted on X, formerly Twitter, shows a row of passengers being jolted around by turbulence inside a plane.

"Boeing again," reads the post's caption. "One person is dead and others are injured after a Singapore Airlines flight from London struck "severe turbulence" and was forced to make an emergency landing in Bangkok."

The post was reposted more than 600 times in two days. Similar posts were shared on Facebook.

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Our rating: False

The video was posted online years before a Singapore Airlines flight experienced severe turbulence in May 2024. It shows a different flight hitting turbulence in 2019.

Video shows flight from Kosovo in June 2019

One person died and dozens more were injured when a Singapore Airlines flight hit "sudden extreme turbulence" about 10 hours after leaving London's Heathrow Airport on May 20. The plane – a Boeing 777-300ER, according to the airline – was supposed to fly to Singapore. Instead, it landed in Thailand after the pilot requested an emergency landing, as USA TODAY previously reported.

The person who died was a 73-year-old British man who likely experienced a heart attack, Reuters reported. Four Americans were also on board the flight, the airline said in a statement.

Fact check: Image shows wrecked police plane in 2020, not crash that killed Iran's president

However, the X video was originally posted online in June 2019, nearly five years before the Singapore Airlines incident. It shows an ALK Airlines from Pristina, Kosovo, experiencing turbulence. That plane landed near Basel, Switzerland, where it was met by ambulances waiting to help passengers who suffered minor injuries, as USA TODAY reported at the time.

Multiple news outlets have published images and videos from inside the Singapore Airlines flight.

What causes turbulence?

There are a few different types of turbulence, each with its own cause:

  • Mountain wave turbulence happens when the wind hits a mountain, forcing it upward. That's why hitting some bumps while flying over mountains is not unusual.

  • Convective turbulence is typically associated with storms and is caused by warm air rising.

  • Clear air turbulence can have a variety of causes and is harder to predict than the other types. It's also the variety of turbulence most likely to affect aircraft.

Paul Williams, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Reading, previously told USA TODAY that clear air turbulence is becoming more frequent and intense as a result of climate change.

"It's going up because of climate change," he said. "The atmosphere is getting more turbulent; there will be more severe turbulence in the atmosphere."

In the U.S., at least 163 passengers and crew members were seriously injured by turbulence from 2009 to 2022, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

PolitiFact and Check Your Fact also debunked the claim.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Video shows ALK Airlines hitting turbulence in June 2019 | Fact check