Singapore Airlines has offered injured passengers upwards of $10,000 in compensation after their flight hit severe turbulence and plunged 178 feet in under five seconds.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, the carrier said that those who had sustained minor injuries on Flight SQ321 from London’s Heathrow Airport to Singapore’s Changi Airport were entitled to compensation.
It added that passengers with more serious injuries requiring long-term medical care would receive larger offers.
“Passengers medically assessed as having sustained serious injuries, requiring long-term medical care, and requesting financial assistance are offered an advance payment of US$25,000 to address their immediate needs,” the Facebook post said.
The airline also offered a full airfare refund to all passengers on the flight, even those who were completely uninjured.
The Boeing 777-300ER aircraft was cruising at an altitude of 37,000 feet when thrust rapidly up and down for 62 seconds some 10 hours into the flight, per Singapore’s Transport Safety Investigation Bureau.
The plane was then forced to divert to Bangkok.
The turbulence on board SQ321 was so bad that it also injured over 100 other people — making it one of the worst turbulence incidents in recent history.
One passenger, Geoffrey Kitchen, a 73-year-old British national, died of a suspected heart attack.
On June 4, the airline said in a Facebook post that 20 passengers were still receiving medical care in the hospitals in Bangkok.
Ade Tan and Amos Chan, a Singaporean couple on board the flight, described the chaos and horror on board when the plane plummeted.
“I must have been thrown off because when I next opened my eyes, I was actually on the aisle,” Chan, 28, told BI’s Kwan Wei Kevin Tan. “I had slammed into another passenger two rows behind us.”
“There were a lot of oxygen masks dropped from above where people had crashed into the ceilings. Many were injured, people had blood on their heads, and some were lying in the aisle as well,” Tan, also 28, added.