One passenger died and 30 others were injured aboard a Singapore Airlines flight that was hit by “severe turbulence,” officials said Tuesday, but experts say such deaths are rare even as researchers warn that climate change may be causing more extreme cases of turbulence.
Since 2009, the National Transportation Safety Board said, the U.S. has not had any deaths related to turbulence aboard large commercial planes such as the Boeing aircraft that encountered sudden extreme turbulence over Myanmar’s Irrawaddy River at 37,000 feet.
A 73-year-old passenger who had some medical problems died, possibly from cardiac arrest, and at least seven people were seriously injured, Kittipong Kittikachorn, general manager of Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport, said at a news conference on Tuesday.
The cause of the turbulence is under investigation. Singapore Airlines said the flight from London to Singapore encountered severe turbulence about 10 hours after departure.
Death from turbulence rarely occurs, but serious encounters are not uncommon, according to Larry Cornman, a physicist and project scientist at the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Atmospheric Research.
“A lot of times for something like this, it’s just the wrong place, the wrong time,” said Cornman, who studies small-scale atmospheric movements that can put aircraft in danger.
Between millions and millions of flights, turbulence caused 185 serious injuries between 2009 and 2023, the last year for which data is publicly available, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
The agency, which requires airlines to report injuries and deaths, classifies serious injuries as those requiring more than two days of hospitalization; involves any internal organ; or results in broken bones, second- or third-degree burns, severe bleeding, or damage to nerves, muscles, or tendons.
Of the incidents reported from 2009 to 2022, at least 129 crew and 34 passengers were injured.
Turbulence-related deaths can be caused by heart attacks or head injuries if a passenger’s head hits the ceiling or is hit by falling luggage, Cornman said.
“Anything that can cause a death on the ground can certainly cause it inside an aluminum tube at 35,000 feet,” he said, adding that seatbelted passengers should still feel safe in the sky.
“These large transport aircraft are built very robustly. They will not collapse or fall out of the sky due to turbulence,” Cornman said.
Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, said initial reports appear to indicate that the Singapore flight encountered turbulence in clear air — the most dangerous type because it cannot be seen and is virtually undetectable with current technology.
“One second, you’re sailing smoothly,” Nelson said. “Then passengers, crew and carts or other unsecured items are thrown across the cabin.”
Nelson and a group of researchers say these incidents of clear-sky turbulence — which are difficult to predict and prevent because they are not associated with storms — are increasing due to climate change.
A 2023 study published in Geophysical Research Letters magazine found that severe clear-air turbulence increased by more than 50% in the North Atlantic Ocean from 1979 to 2020.
The increase in turbulence is likely due to the effect of climate change on wind speeds in the upper levels of the atmosphere, the researchers found. Some of the most pronounced increases in clear-air turbulence in recent decades have occurred in mid-latitude regions, including the North Atlantic and flight paths over the United States, according to the study.
The results suggest that global warming may be causing instability in the jet stream, a conveyor belt of fast-moving air that circles the globe over the Northern Hemisphere, said Mark Prosser, study co-author and PhD researcher at the University of Reading. in the United Kingdom.
The jet stream, which flows like a river of air from west to east, is fueled by temperature differences between cooler regions to the north and warmer air masses to the south. Climate change could be throwing the jet stream out of balance, which could have huge implications for future air travel, Prosser said.
“Planes like to fly with the jet stream,” he said, “but where planes like to fly is also, ironically, where all the turbulence is.”
This instability is expected to increase as the world warms. Prosser’s colleagues at the University of Reading separately used climate models to project how clear-air turbulence in the second half of this century might change if global warming continues. The researchers found that increased greenhouse gas emissions also increased turbulence and instability.
“If we compare the climate from 2050 to 2080 with the climate before we started emitting greenhouse gases – so in pre-industrial times – there has been a doubling, or sometimes tripling, of the amount of clean air turbulence in the atmosphere.” , said Prosser.
A total of 211 passengers and 18 crew were on the Singapore Airlines flight when it was jolted mid-air, the airline said in a statement. The plane suddenly dropped from 37,000 feet to 31,000 feet in five minutes, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.
The pilot declared a medical emergency and diverted the plane to Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, where it landed at 3:45 p.m. local time (4:45 a.m. ET), the airline said.
Authorities did not release the identity of the deceased passenger Tuesday.
The people on the flight were mainly from Australia, the United Kingdom, Singapore and New Zealand, the airline said. Four passengers were from the United States.
“Singapore Airlines offers its deepest condolences to the family of the deceased,” the statement said. “We deeply apologize for the traumatic experience our passengers and crew suffered on this flight.”
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
