Singapore Airlines death: Is climate change making air turbulence worse?

Experts say climate change is expected to make incidents of turbulence worse for air travellers.

Geoff Kitchen was on his way to a six-week holiday across South Asia and Australia with his wife Linda. Ten hours into the flight and in the middle of the breakfast service, Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 from London to Singapore plunged 6,000 feet (1,800 metres) in minutes.

The Boeing 777-300ER carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew members made an emergency landing in Bangkok. Kitchen went into cardiac arrest and ultimately died. At least 71 others were injured and 20 people are still in intensive care units in Bangkok.

But how often do such injuries and deaths happen, what is air turbulence, is it getting worse – and does climate change have a role in all of this?

Compared with the millions of flights that take to the skies each year (40.1 million forecast for 2024), what happened on SQ321 is rare.

In the United States, the world’s largest air travel market, there have only been 163 injuries between 2009 and 2022 that required hospitalisation, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.