62 seconds of turbulence

Flight data details SQ32I's rapid climbs and descents that caused cabin chaos

- Mike Yeo

For one minute and two seconds, passengers of Singapore Airlines Flight SQ321 felt their plane rocked by sudden and extreme turbulence as they flew over the Irrawady Delta region of Myanmar on May 21.

Granular flight data from flight tracking website Flightradar24 shows that the Boeing 777-300ER climbed and descended rapidly twice in 62 seconds, starting from 3.49pm Singapore time, as the plane was nearing the end of a non-stop flight from London to Singapore.

During this time, the plane climbed from its cruise altitude of 37,000 feet to 37,400 feet, and then dropped to 36,975 feet before settling back onto its cruise altitude.

This indicates that it was the rapid transition between the climb and descent caused by the turbulence and not the actual change in altitude itself, which was relatively minor that caused pandemonium in the cabin.

The Flightradar24 data - derived from a global network of groundbased receivers, satellites and radars that receive flight data from aircraft transponders - contradicts some earlier reports, which pinpointed the aircraft descending from 37,000 feet to 31,000 feet between 4.06pm and 4.10pm as the cause of the injuries.