Brian McDonald
Bangkok — Many of the most seriously injured people who were in the Singapore Airlines flight that experienced severe turbulence require spinal operations, a Bangkok hospital said on Thursday. Twenty people remained in intensive care and a 73-year-old British man died after the Boeing 777, flying from London’s Heathrow Airport to Singapore, descended suddenly after hitting turbulence in the Andaman Sea on Tuesday.
A public relations officer at Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital, which treated more than 100 people injured in the situation, told the Associated Press that other local hospitals have been asked to lend their best specialists to help with treatments. He asked not to be identified because of hospital policy.
Passengers described the “sheer terror” of the aircraft shaking, loose items flying and injured people lying paralyzed on the floor of the plane.
It remains unclear what exactly caused the turbulence that sent the plane, which was carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew, into a descent of 6,000 feet in about three minutes. The flight from London to Singapore was diverted to Thailand.
Pongsakornr Rodphai via Reuters
In one of the latest accounts of the chaos on board, Malaysian Amelia Lim, 43, described finding herself face down on the floor.
“I was so scared… I could see so many people on the ground, all bleeding. There was blood on the ground and on people,” she told online newspaper Malay Mail.
The woman sitting next to her was “motionless in the hallway and unable to move, likely suffering from a hip or spinal injury,” he added.
Speaking Wednesday with CBS Newspassenger Dzafram Azmir, a 28-year-old Malaysian student who said he was not injured thanks to keeping his seat belt on, described the “horrible” scenes when the plane hit turbulence at meal service time.
He said there was no warning and that “there was screaming, yelling and gasping” while people who were not wearing seat belts “were thrown from their seats, thrown to the ceiling of the cabin and immediately thrown back down to their seats. seats or the floor.”
ICU patients in Bangkok included six Britons, six Malaysians, three Australians, two Singaporeans and one person from Hong Kong, New Zealand and the Philippines, Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital said. He stated that he provided medical assistance to a total of 104 people.
Thai authorities said the British man who died had possibly had a heart attack. Passengers described how the crew tried to revive him by performing CPR for about 20 minutes.
Most people associate turbulence with strong storms, but the most dangerous type is so-called clear air turbulence. Wind shear can occur in thin cirrus clouds or even in clear air near thunderstorms, as differences in temperature and pressure create powerful, fast-moving air currents.
According to a 2021 report by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, turbulence was responsible for 37.6% of all accidents on major commercial airlines between 2009 and 2018. The Federal Aviation Administration, another US government agency US said there were 146 serious injuries caused by the turbulence. 2009 to 2021.
Tourism and aviation expert Anita Mendiratta, who lives in London, said the extreme turbulence that hit the Singapore Airlines flight was “extremely unusual”.
She said passengers should listen to instructions to keep their seat belts on, ensure carry-on luggage is safely stowed when not in use and reduce items stored in overhead bins.
“When there is turbulence, these doors can open and all the items on top, be it our hand luggage, our coats, our duty free items, become mobile and become a risk to all of us. ,” she told the Associated Press. .
Although the cause of the turbulence that hit the flight from London to Singapore remained unclear, climatologists warned people to prepare more flight delays, cancellations and more severe turbulence as a result of of Climate Change.
