The death of one man and the injury of dozens of other passengers due to severe turbulence on a Singapore Airlines flight yesterday morning has caused international concern and concern, especially among frequent flyers.
Images of the plane's mangled interior, as well as the fact that one passenger died of a heart attack during the terrifying incident, are a reminder of the dangers of turbulence, and several international media are turning to experts and statistics to to find answers about the causes that may cause the phenomenon, about its frequency or even the relationship it may have with the climate crisis.
Crazy footage shows the aftermath of a Singapore Airlines plane that suffered extreme turbulence during a flight from London. Tragically, one person, a 73-year-old British man, died, "probably" from a heart attack.
53 passengers and one crew member were also injured during the… pic.twitter.com/ccNbLJtIc2
— Morbid Knowledge (@Morbidful) May 21, 2024
What happened on the Singapore Airlines plane
The nightmare for passengers on flight SQ321, which was flying from London to Singapore, began about 10 hours after it left Heathrow Airport.
The plane, a Boeing 777-300R, went into midair while inside Thai airspace and then encountered severe turbulence while flying at 37.000 feet over Myanmar, the airline said in a statement.
The pilot declared a medical emergency and took the necessary actions to divert the flight to Bangkok, where the plane landed a short time later.
During the horror flight, 73-year-old Briton Geoff Kitchen died of a heart attack, while dozens of other people were injured.
Of these, six people have been seriously injured, while another 39 received medical attention for minor injuries.
According to the latest information from the BBC, of the 211 passengers and 18 crew members on board the Singapore Airlines Boeing, 143 traveled to Singapore this morning. Seventy-nine passengers and six crew members are still in Bangkok, with some of them remaining in hospital.
How common are injuries or deaths during severe turbulence
On international scheduled flights, deaths caused as a direct result of turbulence are extremely rare. Pilots are usually able to warn the crew of most types of turbulence in time to ensure that all passengers are wearing their seat belts and following the required safety precautions.
According to the Guardian, on smaller private planes or business jets, serious injuries or deaths are more common, with the US National Transportation Safety Board recording more than 100 injuries and dozens of deaths in just a decade on domestic flights – although the fatalities mostly involved flights where turbulence ultimately caused the aircraft to crash.
On larger airplanes, turbulence poses risks for head injuries or other injuries to people who may be ejected from their seat in the cabin if not wearing a seat belt, or struck by a thrown object. Naturally, the chances of injury are much greater for the crew, whose members spend much of the flight unbelted, serving and assisting passengers.
Of interest is data from the US Federal Aviation Administration, which tracks reports of turbulence-related injuries but does not record all turbulence incidents.
In 2022, the latest year for which data was available, the FAA reported that four passengers and 13 crew members, a total of 17 people, suffered serious injuries as a result of turbulence. From 2009 to 2022, a total of 34 passengers and 129 crew members, or 163 people in total, were seriously injured in turbulence incidents.
What is turbulence and how can airplanes avoid it?
In general, turbulence is caused by air masses of different temperature, pressure or speed meeting in areas where different wind patterns collide – like when a boat hits rough seas, the British newspaper reports.
Although there are weather and geographical conditions, such as storms, mountain ranges and the appearance of certain clouds, that act as harbingers of possible turbulence in flights, there are also so-called CAT (clear-air turbulence) turbulences that can surprise airplane pilots, as they appear completely unannounced.
According to Stuart Fox, director of flight and technical operations at the International Air Transport Association Iata, weather forecasts that include impending weather fronts or wind direction over mountains can indicate a higher chance of "clear air turbulence". The problem, he says, is that the intensity and direction of airflow is something that changes rapidly, so these predictions are of limited utility. Such gusts of wind can knock planes off course, cause them to lose altitude sharply or shake violently.
Pilots can now receive guidance from reports from leading aircraft. Iata hosts a platform used by various airlines to share data, Fox says: "It's a direct way of informing pilots who may be going through the same turbulence."
Although areas like the Bay of Bengal (which the Singapore Airlines plane had just passed through before the incident) are known for experiencing turbulence, pilots' options may be limited, says Marco Chan, a former commercial pilot and professor at Buckinghamshire New University. According to him, the Singapore Airlines incident took place “within the intertropical convergence zone, where extremely strong storms occur. These storms are prominently displayed on the pilots' navigation screen – but it may not be possible to completely bypass the storm cluster as it can be well in excess of 50 nautical miles.”
Could the climate crisis cause more frequent turbulence?
According to a study carried out by scientists at the University of Reading, the answer is "yes". The experts found through their research that higher temperatures, as a result of the climate crisis, lead to a significant increase in turbulence on transatlantic flights.
"They found that the occurrence of severe turbulence increased by 55% between 1979 and 2020, due to changes in wind speed at high altitudes," the Guardian reports.
Professor Paul Williams, one of the authors of the study, said the evidence showed the effects were already real and encouraged the airline industry to invest in better turbulence prediction and detection systems.
Source: protothema.gr
