[Breaking] 1 Dead as Result Severe Turbulence hits Boeing, flight from LHR Heathrow to Changi by Singapore Airlines, Skytrax's World Best Airline 2023

Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport 6.04PM

Singapore Airlines flight SQ321, with Boeing 777-312 [ER], flight from London [LHR Heathrow] to Singapore [Changi SIN], dropped about 6000 feet due to an air pocket, now emergency landing in Suvarnabhumi Bangkok. One person dead. A very sudden rapid descent although not necessarily a nosedive. Very sad to have resulted in a death. Thankfully a very rare occurrence for it to be this severe. A number of people have been injured, the airline said, though the company did not specify how many. It said 211 passengers and 18 crew were on board, but other info said 30 injured. The flight landed [emergency] in Suvarnabhumi Bangkok at 3.45PM Bangkok (4:45 a.m. ET) Tuesday. Specification of Boeing [ICAO code B77W] can confirmed as Singapore Airlines part of Star Alliance.

Sadly, the coincidence: the 2024 World Airline Awards will take place on Monday 24th June 2024 [33 days from now] at the Fairmont Windsor Park located close to Heathrow Airport, and in 2023 Singapore Airlines was named the World’s Best Airline at the 2023 World Airline Awards, with Qatar Airways ranked 2nd and ANA All Nippon Airways in 3rd place. Another tragic coincidence, February 29th, 2024 or 83 days ago, Singapore Airlines (SIA) Group has won two accolades at Air Transport World (ATW) magazine’s prestigious annual Airline Industry Achievement Awards. 

Mr Goh Choon Phong, Chief Executive Officer of SIA, has been honoured with the Excellence in Leadership Award for 2024. Scoot, SIA’s low-cost subsidiary, has been named Value Airline of the Year. This year’s two accolades come after ATW named Singapore Airlines Airline of the Year in 2023.

The ATW Airline Industry Achievement Awards are among the most coveted in the air transport industry, with the recipients selected by a panel of editors and analysts from Aviation Week Network’s ATW, CAPA, and Routes. 

Just 5 days ago, another Boeing xxx-x12, Indonesian flag carrier Garuda Indonesia said the Garuda-1105 flight to Madinah -- operated by a Boeing 747-412 -- returned to its original airport in Makassar at 17:15 local time (0915 GMT) with all passengers unhurt.

Nonstop horror by Boeing. 17 hours ago before the accident, Everett Boeing built 767 gets a 5 year reprieve from climate rules. Another issues, after 5 years-long fight, a mother who lost her daughter when a Boeing MAX plane crashed feels one step closer to justice following a determination that Boeing failed to live up to promises it made. Catherine Berthet pinned the blame for her daughter’s death [Camille Geoffroy Berthet] on Boeing, the maker of the 737 MAX jet that carried the 28-year-old and 345 other people to their deaths because of a flawed control system.

While the MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 left Boeing with a scarred reputation and billions of dollars in legal bills, fines and losses, the company cut an unusual plea deal with federal prosecutors to avoid a criminal conviction. If it met conditions negotiated with the Justice Department until Jan. 7 of this year, Boeing could avoid further sanctions and yet another black mark related to the disaster.

The families who lost loved ones when two Renton-built 737 MAX planes crashed have talked almost daily for roughly five years strategizing about how to hold Boeing accountable.

The families contend the agreement Boeing signed with federal prosecutors violated their rights as crime victims, because the Justice Department did not consult them before making the deal. And, the families say, it let Boeing off easy.

That group has been waiting three years for the deal to expire, opening a window for the Justice Department to determine whether Boeing complied with the agreement. If it had not, the manufacturer could face criminal charges for the MAX crashes.

Berthet, 56, had just finished the five-hour drive back to Paris from her mother’s house, where she often stays for a week at a time to help with caregiving, when she saw a letter from the Justice Department’s Victim Witness Unit.

Boeing, the letter said, had violated the terms of the agreement. Berthet had to read it twice. Her phone pinged with messages from other families asking if this could really be true. Berthet cried tears of joy for what she saw as a small victory in a five-year battle and prayed to her daughter Camille. She called her son and her mother, and got on Zoom to celebrate with the other families who had lost loved ones in the MAX crashes. Speaking with The Seattle Times on Zoom at nearly 3 a.m. Wednesday last week, she said she was ready to go dance in the streets.

“This is the first time we have hope,” Berthet said.

Boeing disputed the Justice Department’s findings and said it had “honored the terms of that agreement.” The company has 30 days to respond to the findings to “explain the nature and circumstances” of the violations and any steps it has taken to remedy the concerns, according to the deal.

In a letter to a district judge in Texas, where the deal was signed, the Justice Department said it is “determining how it will proceed in this matter.”

But, for the families who lost loved ones in the MAX crashes, the letter feels like a significant turning point, as it is unclear why the Justice Department would find Boeing had breached the agreement if not to pursue new sanctions against the company.

After the deferred prosecution agreement expired in January, the Justice Department had six months to determine if Boeing had met all the conditions it had agreed to. If it had not, federal prosecutors could pursue the criminal charge that had been put on hold.

Berthet, other victims’ families, and the attorneys representing them had little hope the Justice Department would choose to do so. In 2022, federal prosecutors said in court records that Boeing had already met nearly all of the conditions in the agreement.

But days before the deal expired, a panel blew off a Boeing 737 MAX plane midflight, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the aircraft, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282. Since then, whistleblowers, aviation safety experts and the FAA have released a stream of accusations. The consensus among critics is that Boeing prioritized speed over quality, created a culture of fear and failed to overhaul its safety practices.

Berthet refers to the panel blowout not as a “safety incident,” but instead as the “crash that hasn’t happened.”

“One hour after the blowout of the panel, all the world knew that there was a problem,” she said.

She saw the accusations that followed as further evidence that the Justice Department should prosecute Boeing. But, after an April meeting with federal prosecutors where they declined to share what information they were considering, Berthet had all but written off the possibility that the Justice Department would pursue criminal charges.

In May, the Justice Department scheduled a May 31 meeting with victims’ families and said it expected to have a decision about Boeing’s compliance. One attorney asked the Justice Department to give them a heads-up before that meeting, hoping to prepare their clients for what they expected to be disappointing news.The decision from federal prosecutors came two weeks early.

Though a victory, Berthet said this wasn’t the end of her fight. She was hopeful federal prosecutors would pursue additional criminal claims against Boeing and two of its CEOs: Dennis Muilenburg, who headed the company at the time of the crashes, and Dave Calhoun, who took over after.By 3 a.m. after she heard the news, wrapped in pajamas and a pink scarf, Berthet found herself holding several emotions at once.

She was celebrating the victory, strategizing her next steps and mourning the loss of her daughter.

“Every day I pray, and I ask God to help us, to be at our side, and for all the people who were in that plane and all the families,” Berthet said. “And this time I prayed and I cried and said, ‘Thank you so much.’

“But this is the first step. Now, of course, we’re going to have another strategy.”

Referring to all the victims’ families, Berthet said “we were very often despaired, very often discouraged, angry, furious. But we were still together. … We know this will last long. We know that, but we are patient.”

For another case.

Also 4 days ago, a former Boeing manager who raised safety questions about the aircraft maker and was found dead after several days of depositions in South Carolina took his own life, police said Friday after concluding their investigation.

John Barnett, 62, of Louisiana, was found dead March 9, and police had said earlier that his injuries were self-inflicted.

Barnett was a longtime Boeing employee and worked as a quality-control manager before he retired in 2017. In the years after that, he shared his concerns with journalists.

Barnett said he saw discarded metal shavings near wiring for the flight controls that could have cut the wiring and caused a catastrophe. He also noted problems with up to a quarter of the oxygen systems on Boeing’s 787 planes.

“Information and records reviewed during the investigation uncovered Mr. Barnett’s longstanding mental health challenges, which had intensified in connection with ongoing legal proceedings related to his whistleblower case,” police said in a statement.

Barnett was in Charleston answering questions for depositions for his whistleblower complaint, and a hearing on the matter was scheduled for June.

Back again Boeing and Southeast Asia, 7 months ago, Boeing has officially opened an office in Jakarta and signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Indonesian Transportation Ministry on the sideline of the office’s inauguration to intensify cooperation in the aviation industry.