Eight people were sent to hospital over the weekend following a severe turbulence incident aboard a Cathay Pacific aircraft.
A total of 10 passengers and crew suffered minor injuries when flight CX156 from Brisbane to Hong Kong hit severe turbulence on Friday, with people reportedly thrown onto the roof of the A350-900 during breakfast service.
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“The flight arrived in Hong Kong at 06:45 am (local time) on May 22. Medical staff boarded the aircraft to assess the conditions of a small number of passengers and crew who reported feeling unwell, and they were provided with the highest level of care,” a Cathay Pacific spokesperson said.
“Six cabin crew and four passengers reported minor injuries, and eight of them were sent to hospital for further medical attention. We will continue to follow up and provide any necessary assistance. The safety of our customers and crew guides every decision we make.”
The incident has drawn comparisons to the turbulence event aboard Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 from London to Singapore in May 2024, which caused dozens of injuries and one death. A final report released last week concluded that weather radar may not have detected, or insufficiently detected, the thunderstorms encountered by the 777-300ER over Myanmar.
According to aviation attorney Peter Carter of Carter Capner Law, the clear-air turbulence explanation may be “off the mark.”
“Cathay said its plane encountered a weather system that appeared with ‘small warning’, much like the initial explanation by Singapore Airlines, which claimed its crash was caused by unpredictable ‘clear air turbulence,'” he said.
“However, aircrews in both events would almost certainly have received forecasts indicating the likelihood of thunderstorms on their planned route and should have been hypervigilant when transiting locations of known convective activity.
“Pilots are trained to stay a considerable distance from storms because aircraft can be severely affected several thousand feet above a storm cell and up to 20 miles laterally.
“Further investigation will be needed for the Cathay flight to determine exactly what happened: what weather was forecast; how close the storms were; how quickly did the crew react?”
In a news release, Carter said affected passengers are entitled to compensation based on the extent of their injuries.
“Even if the airline is not at fault, the 1999 Montreal Convention allows passengers to claim up to A$260,000 for proven losses such as medical expenses, loss of living comforts and loss of income due to proven bodily injury,” he said.
“The airline must also pay a greater amount unless it proves that the accident was not due to its negligence or that of its pilots or engineers, so in that sense there is no longer a compensation limit.
“All passengers on the Cathay Pacific flight, regardless of where they live, can claim.”
Carter represented several passengers of SQ321 in their compensation claims against Singapore Airlines, as well as LATAM Flight 800, which also suffered a turbulence event in March 2024.
