Three Australians remain in intensive care in a Bangkok hospital after their Singapore Airlines flight violently dropped when flying through severe turbulence earlier this week.
The three Australians are among 20 passengers from the flight who are being treated in intensive care at the Samitivej Srinakarin hospital in Bangkok, after flight SQ321 from London to Singapore on Tuesday hit turbulence, leaving a 73-year-old British man dead and prompting an emergency diversion to the Thai capital.
Six Britons, six Malaysians, two Singaporeans and one person each from Hong Kong, New Zealand and the Philippines were also in intensive care, authorities said. Nine of the 20 passengers in ICU had undergone surgery while five more were awaiting surgery.
Outside of ICU, there were at least a further nine Australians reported as remaining in hospitals in Bangkok.
An Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said there were 12 Australians and one permanent resident in hospital in Bangkok. One other Australian had been discharged.
Many of those in hospital had head injuries, according to Thai officials.
An Adelaide man onboard the flight said his wife could be in Samitivej Srinakarin hospital for weeks, and “wasn’t in a good way”, according to the ABC. The man, who was not identified, said she had been standing up when the plane suddenly dropped.
Of the 211 passengers and 18 crew who had been onboard the Boeing 777, 79 passengers and six crew remained in Bangkok, with the majority of those in hospital, the chief executive of Singapore Airlines, Goh Choon Phong, said.
Aviation investigators arrived in the city on Wednesday to begin examining the incident, with the US National Transportation Safety Board also sending technical advisors because of the involvement of a Boeing plane.
Meanwhile, passengers from the flight who were well enough to travel began leaving Bangkok, including 131 who left on a special flight to Singapore on Wednesday.
Josh Silverstone, a 24-year-old passenger from south London, was discharged from hospital with a cut in his eye and a chipped tooth. He recalled waking up on the floor of the plane.
“I … didn’t realise what happened. I must have got hit in the head somewhere. Lots of people hit their head. Everyone was bleeding,” Silverstone, who had been on his way to Singapore before a holiday in Bali with friends, told Reuters.
“I arrived back in the airport and I couldn’t stop vomiting. I couldn’t walk, it was pretty bad,” Silverstone told the Associated Press.
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He said he was so scared that he bought in-flight internet access to message his mother: “I wasn’t trying to scare her, but I said ‘I love you.’”
Silverstone said: “A lot of people have got spinal issues from hitting their heads, I’ve heard a lot of people can barely move their back, I’m very fortunate to come out here barely 24 hours later.”
Beverley Mayers, who was not injured, described the situation inside the plane as “sheer terror”.
“The whole plane was shuddering … great pieces were falling off and dropping on the floor, people getting hit in the head,” she told Channel Nine after arriving at Sydney airport.
Newlyweds Ali and Ramiza Bukhari, who were flying back from their honeymoon, told reporters at Sydney airport they were relieved to be back home.
“It was a very, very traumatic experience,” Ali Bukhari said.
Flight attendants had been serving breakfast at the time. Coffee and cups of water were thrown into the air, and people’s phones, shoes and cushions were flung around.
Photographs of the inside of the cabin showed oxygen masks and panels hanging from the ceiling, and the floor covered in food and drinks, with luggage scattered. Patches of blood stained the cabin carpets. One passenger told Reuters overhead plastic panels had been broken by the impact of people’s heads slamming into them.