Author: Gareth

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Singapore Airlines Turbulence Kills One, Injures 104

On 21 May 2024, Singapore Airlines Flight SQ321 encountered severe turbulence over Myanmar, killing one passenger and injuring 104 others in one of the most widely reported aviation safety incidents of the year. The event — the first turbulence-related fatality in commercial aviation in more than two decades — refocused industry and regulatory attention on the hazards of convective weather at cruise altitude and the limitations of current turbulence forecasting technology.
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Airlines Must Now Give Automatic Cash Refunds

On 24 April 2024, the US Department of Transportation announced a new rule requiring airlines to automatically refund passengers when flights are cancelled or significantly delayed. For years, airlines had made passengers request refunds manually, and many tried to offer travel vouchers instead of cash.
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Seat Mishap Sends LATAM 787 into Sudden Dive

On 11 March 2024, a LATAM Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner operating a scheduled service from Sydney to Auckland suddenly pitched nose-down in cruise flight, throwing unsecured passengers and crew members violently against overhead bins and the cabin ceiling, injuring more than 50 people. The incident attracted immediate global media attention — but it was the cause established by investigators that truly shocked the aviation community: a flight attendant had accidentally pressed a button on the captain’s motorised seat while delivering a meal to the cockpit.
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Pratt & Whitney Recall Grounds Hundreds of Jets

In late 2023 and through 2024, an engine manufacturing fault forced airlines around the world to ground hundreds of Airbus narrowbody jets. The problem affected the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G geared turbofan engine, used on the A320neo and A321neo — two of the most popular aircraft types in service today.
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JAL A350 Destroyed at Haneda; All 379 Survive

On 2 January 2024, a Japan Airlines Airbus A350-900 collided with a Japan Coast Guard turboprop on the runway at Tokyo Haneda Airport, destroying the airliner in a fierce post-impact fire. Five of the six Coast Guard crew members died. Every one of the 379 people aboard the JAL aircraft — 367 passengers and 12 crew — evacuated safely and survived, in what aviation safety experts would later describe as one of the most remarkable mass evacuations in commercial aviation history.
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2023 Ends With Zero Fatal Jet Accidents Worldwide

As 2023 drew to a close, data from aviation safety organisations confirmed what had become increasingly evident throughout the year: commercial jet aviation had completed twelve consecutive months without a single fatal accident or hull loss. Across more than 32 million commercial flights operated globally, not one jet airliner had been destroyed in a fatal accident — a record that safety analysts described as without precedent and that stood in striking contrast to the highly publicised safety concerns that would emerge in the following year.
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