Early this morning, a Singapore Airlines plane bound for Paris turned back to Changi Airport for an emergency landing less than an hour after it departed. The aircraft had ascended to 24,000 feet and was flying over Malaysia when it had to make a U-turn. Pilots reported a decrease in cabin pressure to air traffic controllers, and SQ336 subsequently dropped to 6,000 feet, deploying oxygen masks and circling for about an hour to dump fuel before landing, The Straits Times said.
The reason for the drop in cabin pressure in the Boeing 777-300ER plane is unclear.
An SIA spokesperson confirmed the incident and reported no injuries for the 234 passengers and 17 crew on board. Emergency vehicles awaited the plane, which landed at Changi Airport at 2:30am.
Unluckily enough, there were passengers on board the SIA aircraft who were initially booked for an Air France flight, which had ended up canceled due to technical issues. One Twitter user took to social media with a copy of the notice that the passengers received entailing their new flight details.
@airfrance @SingaporeAir Congrats to Sing. Airline with well organised care for passenger while waiting and already a survey to get feedback. 1-0 for SA. AF flight cancellation was much more chaotique and no request for feedback. Well i guess here it is! pic.twitter.com/oKh1MxxZaa
— Jean C (@jcgrenoble) November 18, 2018
With a change of crew and aircraft, the flight eventually departed Singapore at 6am and will arrive in Paris with a delay of about five hours.
And with the recent Lion Air crash fresh in everyone’s minds, netizens praised SIA for making safety the first priority.
