British man may have suffered fatal heart attack when turbulence hit Singapore Airlines flight

BANGKOK (AP) — A Singapore Airlines flight hit severe turbulence over the Indian Ocean and descended 6,000 feet (around 1,800 meters) in a span of about three minutes, the carrier said Tuesday, leaving a British man dead and more than two dozen other passengers injured.

The flight was then diverted and landed in stormy weather in Bangkok.

Authorities said the 73-year-old British man may have suffered a heart attack, though that hasn’t been confirmed. His name wasn’t immediately released.

The Boeing 777 flight from London’s Heathrow airport to Singapore, with 211 passengers and 18 crew members aboard, landed at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, the airline said in a Facebook post.

British passenger Andrew Davies told Sky News that “anyone who had a seatbelt on isn’t injured.”

He said that the seatbelt sign was illuminated, but crew members didn’t have time to take their seats.

“Every single cabin crew person I saw was injured in some way or another, maybe with a gash on their head,” Davies said. “One had a bad back, who was in obvious pain.”

Emergency medical crews rushed to help the passengers. Videos posted on the LINE messaging platform by Suvarnabhumi Airport showed several ambulances streaming to the scene.

Kittipong Kittikachorn, general manager of Suvarnabhumi Airport, told a news conference on Tuesday night that the British man appeared to have suffered a heart attack, but medical authorities would need to confirm that.

He said that seven passengers were severely injured, and 23 passengers and nine crew members had what he described as moderate injuries. Sixteen other people with less serious injuries received hospital treatment, while another 14 were treated at the airport, according to Kittipong.

Kittipong said the