Passengers are suing an airline that killed a 73-year-old British grandfather and hospitalised more than 100 people after it fell 180 feet during turbulence.
Alison Read, Benjamin Read, and Bradley Richards are suing Singapore Airlines for damages related to their personal injuries.
All three of them were injured while aboard the Singapore-bound Boeing 777-300ER in May 2024.
Another passenger, Geoff Kitchen, 73, died from a suspected heart attack as the aircraft descended.
Meanwhile, dozens more people were left with injuries after flight SQ321 was struck by turbulence above Myanmar about 11 hours into the 13-hour flight.
Some 104 people were hospitalised, and 20 of them needed intensive care or surgery.
Mr Richards, a telecoms engineer, previously said he feared he would have to change careers after suffering life-changing injuries.
The 31-year-old was catapulted into the roof of the plane when it fell and was left with cuts to his head – he was forced to use a pillow to ease the blood flow.
He had to be lifted into a wheelchair when the plane made its emergency landing in Bangkok and described the traumatic experience as ‘something out of a movie’.
‘I remember waking up, and my head was just pouring with blood, kids were screaming, people running around everywhere, it was so frantic,’ he said.
He suffered numerous fractures to the spine and neck, a spinal epidural hematoma and a cut to his head needing 20 stitches.
A claim against Singapore Airlines was filed at the High Court at the end of last month, The Sun reported.
The amount of compensation each passenger is requesting is unknown, and the firm has not yet responded to the claim.
All three claimants are represented by Keystone Law.
There is no involvement from Mr Kitchen’s family, who perished on the aircraft.
Following his death, it was revealed that Mr Kitchen and his wife spent the weekend with their grandchildren before jetting off on their ‘trip of a lifetime’.
The retired insurance worker from Thonbury, near Bristol, and his spouse were travelling to South East Asia, Indonesia, and Australia for a six-week vacation.
A friend of the couple told the BBC they ‘loved to travel’ and were ‘very excited’ for the trip.
In June 2024, the airline said passengers who sustained minor injuries would receive $10,000 in compensation.
The airline said: ‘For those who sustained more serious injuries… we have invited them to discuss a compensation offer to meet each of their specific circumstances when they feel well and ready to do so.
‘Passengers medically assessed as having sustained serious injuries, requiring long-term medical care, and requesting financial assistance are offered an advance payment of $25,000 to address their immediate needs.
‘This will be part of the final compensation that these passengers will receive.’
In addition, the carrier said it would refund fares for all passengers who were on the flight, including those who were not injured.
The Transport Safety Investigation Bureau’s (TSIB) preliminary investigation discovered that the aircraft descended 178ft (54m) in just four seconds.
The agency said this likely caused the injuries to the crew and passengers.
The plane carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew diverted for an emergency landing after it was buffeted by turbulence that threw passengers and crew about the cabin, slamming some into the ceiling.
‘The aircraft experienced a rapid change in G (gravitational force). This likely resulted in the occupants who were not belted up to become airborne,’ the Singapore Transport Ministry said in a statement.
‘The vertical acceleration changed from negative 1.5G to positive 1.5G within 4 seconds. This likely resulted in the occupants who were airborne to fall back down,’ it said, citing information extracted from the flight data and cockpit voice recorders.
‘The rapid changes in G over the 4.6-second duration resulted in an altitude drop of 178 ft, from 37,362 ft to 37,184 ft. This sequence of events likely caused the injuries to the crew and passengers,’ it added.
Airlines have no control over the turbulence that they will face. The only thing airlines can control is how they react to turbulence, not whether it happens, because turbulence is a natural atmospheric event, just like thunderstorms, lightning, or strong winds, and aircraft just have to fly through or around it when achievable.
Atmospheric turbulence, which is caused by jet streams, weather fronts, storms, mountain waves, and clear-air pockets are invisible and always shifting. Of course, pilots get forecasts, but clear-air turbulence usually can’t be detected by radar.
Predicting the precise position and strength of turbulence is still difficult, even with contemporary technology.
Although they cannot completely eradicate turbulence, airlines can reroute to avoid known turbulent spots, and the pilots can slow the aircraft to ‘turbulence penetration speed’ to relieve pressure on the airframe. Seatbelt signs are switched on early if turbulence is expected, but of course, it’s not always expected, and aircraft are engineered to withstand far more force than turbulence can produce. Seatbelt safety is the most essential part of the whole picture.
Because turbulence is unexpected, the safest position is simply being strapped in. Most turbulence-related injuries occur to people who were not wearing seatbelts. It’s the same logic as wearing a seatbelt in a car.
It seems that you can sue for injuries caused by turbulence, but only if the turbulence counts as an ‘accident’ under aviation law and the airline failed in a duty, for instance, not warning passengers, not securing the cabin, or ignoring known risks.
When turbulence becomes a legal claim, which is under international aviation law (usually the Montreal Convention), passengers can claim compensation if they are injured due to an ‘unexpected or unusual event external to the passenger’. Turbulence can meet this definition, but not always. The fundamental question is whether the airline did something wrong or failed to prevent avoidable harm.
The chance of being hurt on a commercial flight is excessively low, but data indicate that medical events do happen, but serious harm is rare, and that aviation still remains one of the safest forms of travel.
The chance of injury on an aircraft is very rare, but it does happen, and when things like this do happen, people want to blame someone, and rightly so. When you travel with an airline, they have a duty of care to make sure their passengers are safe, and although statistically aviation is safe, when an injury does happen, it’s almost always because a system, a process, or a decision failed somewhere, and people are absolutely justified in expecting accountability.
The core point here is that when you board an aircraft, the airline takes on a legal duty of care. This duty isn’t symbolic; it’s a concrete obligation grounded in aviation law, consumer protection, and international conventions like the Montreal Convention, but the simple answer is, if you don’t feel safe, don’t fly!
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