"Severe" turbulence injures 7 on Qantas A380
Seven passengers were injured when a Qantas A380 encountered turbulence so severe that several fliers were lifted out of their seats and thrown in the ceiling, according eyewitness accounts from customers on the Saturday morning flight.
The Qantas flight hit the "air pocket" over Indian air space on its way from London to Singapore, The Telegraph of London reports. The plane landed in Singapore about three hours later. Four people were hospitalized, but all have since been released, Qantas officials say.
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Australia"s ABC News reports passengers on the flight say the captain turned on the "fasten seatbelt" indicator only "a few seconds" before the turbulence. Speaking to the Telegraph, a Qantas spokesman described the turbulence as "severe."
Qantas spokeswoman Sophia Connolly acknowledges to The Associated Press that "the seat-belt sign had come on but some passengers were still moving back to their seats."
What followed was a harrowing scene, according to the various media accounts of the incident.
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"It was pretty scary. We literally went up to the roof. Many people weren"t in seat belts," one passenger says to ABC News.
Another passenger tells ABC News he saw injuries that included broken bones and cuts.
"I believe someone"s head went through an overhead locker apparently, or cracked it or something," that passenger says to ABC News.
A passenger who would identify himself only as Simon from Perth tells The Sydney Morning Herald that – prior to the turbulence – "it was one of the sm