An Australian TV host was left looking uncomfortable after a guest recreated the Singapore Airlines turbulence tragedy.
On Tuesday, a flight travelling from London to Singapore plunged 7,000ft in just six minutes after hitting severe turbulence.
The aircraft, which was carrying 229 people, fell from 38,000ft to 31,000ft over the west coast of Burma, sending passengers hurling into ‘somersaults’ as they hit the plane’s ceiling.
Grandfather Geoffrey Kitchen, 73, suffered a heart attack and was pronounced dead at the scene after the plane made an emergency landing in Thailand.
The following day, Natalie Barr, who hosts the breakfast programme Sunrise, was speaking to CNN aviation expert Richard Quest on-air to explain what went wrong with the flight when things took a bizarre turn.
As he prepared to tell viewers what had unfolded, Quest pulled out several props to re-enact the ‘damage and destruction’.
‘So, here’s your plane,’ he began, before pulling a miniature plane replica into frame.
‘It’s going along, alright, but then there’s bad weather ahead over Myanmar, and for whatever reason, either pilots ahead or air traffic control, no one really tells them about it, and they start to do this,’ he said, as he simulated the plane dropping.
The British journalist then held up a small piece of paper with dozens of non-visible numbers on it, in which one column was highlighted in yellow.
‘The numbers in yellow show that the plane only went up and down by several hundred feet at a time,’ he explained.
‘It would go up a hundred, down two hundred, up 50, down 75..but, the velocity of the plane, the force was so intense,” he continued.
And it’s these smallish movements with tremendous force that creates this damage and destruction that you see.’
After asking about the how the turbulence became so serious it saw passengers flung into the air, Quest continued with his somewhat bizarre demonstration.
‘Let me just find something I can use as a prop,’ he said before holding up a makeup compact.
‘Imagine this is one of the people, it a makeup puff,” he went on.
‘The plane’s flying along and suddenly it drops,’ he said, before dropping the product.
‘The roof is [up] here, and they hit it,’ he continued, as he hit the product with his hand.
As the camera cut back to Barr, she looked pretty taken aback by what had just played out.
Wrapping up the interview, Barr asked if the emergency was an important reminder for passengers to wear seatbelts during flights.
‘What sort of idiot would sit in a metal tube that’s bouncing through the air at five or six hundred miles an hour in unpredictable circumstances without being tied down?’ he questioned.
‘If I put those facts to you, that’s what we’re talking about.
‘I’m not going to preach and lecture, because I’m as guilty as you are!’ he concluded as she looked even more uncomfortable and responded ‘ok, ok, ok’ as the segment came to an end.
In total 71 passengers were admitted to hospital, with seven in a critical condition.
Footage from inside the plane showed an entire ceiling section of a food preparation area destroyed with wreckage hanging down, debris strewn down the aisles and walkways, with blood stains visible on upper sections of the cabin and overhead lockers.
Sunrise airs on Channel 7 in Australia.
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