Singapore: It is two years since Singapore Airlines flight 321 landed in Bangkok with one passenger dead and scores injured, including 13 Australians, victims of one of the most extreme turbulence events in modern aviation history.
Investigators still have no definitive explanation for how it went so wrong.
The flight from London’s Heathrow to Singapore on May 21, 2024, hit an unexpected updraught over south-west Myanmar, propelling it higher and faster before a rapid plunge.
The force hurled unbuckled passengers and flight attendants preparing breakfast into the ceiling and through the cabin. They didn’t have time to react to the seatbelt sign.
British man Geoff Kitchen, 73, died from heart failure before the plane was able to make an emergency landing in Bangkok.
South Australian high school dance teacher Kerry Jordan broke her neck and remains paralysed from the chest down.
Of the 229 passengers and crew, 79 were injured, 56 seriously, according to investigators. There were more than 50 Australians on board, 13 of whom were hospitalised.
Released this week in time for the anniversary, Singapore’s Transport Safety Investigation Bureau’s (TSIB) final investigation cast suspicion on a potentially faulty onboard weather radar, but said only that this “cannot be ruled out”.
Investigators studied previous Singapore Airlines Boeing B777 flights between May 2023 and June 2025 and found 103 separate reports of problems with the system – 12 from the same plane used for the ill-fated SQ321.
The pilots said there was nothing ominous on the radar, a claim investigators could not specifically review or test, and few clouds. Later meteorological data and statements from four other flight crews in the area indicated there was, in fact, “widespread weather”.
While the flight paths of the other planes were different, “the investigation team is unable to understand why the flight crew of [SQ 321] did not see the widespread clouds”.
One theory following the incident was “clear air turbulence”, a hard-to-detect phenomenon associated with high altitudes. The report ruled this out, instead determining that SQ321 hit “convective induced turbulence”, which is linked to clouds and storms.
Despite having no apparent issues with the conditions, the crew contacted air traffic control in Yangon, Myanmar, to ask for a more direct route to the next navigational waypoint “due to weather”.
The TSIB report explained this weather reference as an attempt “to increase the likelihood of [air traffic control] approving their request for the direct route”.
It worked to some extent – Yangon offered a different waypoint, not as direct as the one requested, but close, and the crew accepted.
Minutes later, flight SQ321 rose and plunged, thrusting Jordan and her partner, Keith Davis, who were returning to Australia from a UK holiday, to the cabin ceiling.
Davis too, was hospitalised in Bangkok. Photos at the time show him in a wheelchair, flanked by hospital staff determined, either because they could not understand English or had strict orders, to prevent him from speaking to journalists. One of them even ripped from Davis’ hand the business card of a reporter from the Wall Street Journal.
It was the beginning of a long journey to be heard and helped, which Davis told this masthead had ended recently with a confidential settlement with Singapore Airlines.
UK tabloid The Sun reported this month that three British passengers were suing Singapore Airlines for damages.
The TSIB report recommended that plane manufacturers develop guidance and fixes for pilots and maintenance staff for malfunctioning weather radar systems.
Davis said the Singaporean investigators’ views on the weather radar were “kind of irrelevant” now, as he and Jordan focused on enjoying the rest of their upended lives.
“Two years have kicked by, and it’s like, you’re just reinventing yourself,” he said.
“There have been some extra things that have happened, some good things, just total lifestyle changes. We sold a house, everything has been redone, all over.
“But the sun is shining, the birds are out … it just makes you think what the alternatives could have been.”
Zach Hope is South-East Asia correspondent. He is a former reporter at the Brisbane Times.Connect via email.
