‘Out of nowhere, the plane just dropped’ – Irish couple recall terror of turbulence on Qatar Airways flight

Emma Rose Power and Conor Buckley, both 27, from Tramore, Co Waterford had spent over two weeks travelling in Thailand.

The bucket list holiday had taken them from Bangkok to Phuket and the Phi Phi Islands and the pair boarded the Qatar Airways flight to Ireland for their final leg home.

However, just an hour and half after take-off, the flight experienced serious turbulence that resulted in eight people being hospitalised.

“I had been asleep basically from when we boarded the plane – I had just woken up and the flight attendant was serving the rows in front,” Ms Power said.

“Out of nowhere, the plane just dropped and the food and the flight attendant went into the air. People didn’t scream but it was kind of a ‘woah’, because I think it was taking a second to register it was happening. Thinking back, it was kind of in slow motion. I just remember grabbing Conor’s arm.”

Ms Power also described how she tried to stop the drinks on the trolley from falling, though many already had. When the turbulence ended, the crew told passengers to fasten their seat belts.

“When everything fell back down, including the flight attendant, she just screamed ‘seatbelts on’ and then the seatbelt sign came back on, because it hadn’t been on,” Ms Power said. “The flight attendants ran to the top of the plane to obviously get into a seat with a belt.”

While Ms Power said the severe turbulence lasted for what she thinks was about 10 seconds but admits it felt a lot longer when it happened.

“Initially, when it was happening, it was like ‘we’ll be OK, we’ll be OK’ but then, I started bawling afterwards,” Ms Power said.

But the couple said with such a long journey left, they tried to stay positive and calm.

“We were just trying to comfort each other and reassure one another that it was going to be ok, that we were going to get through this,” Mr Buckley said. “I think that was important because we needed to keep that mentality for the duration of the flight.”

Mr Buckley said there was five and half hours left of the flight, which was a worrying and tense time for those on board.

“Any time there was any turbulence whatsoever, like there would be on any other flight, you’d be praying to God that this isn’t going to be fatal, that you’re not going to drop out of the sky,” he said. “It was really really worrying but thankfully we landed and there was a round of applause when we landed and I couldn’t get off that plane quick enough.”

The couple said they had seen news reports of turbulence experiences on an earlier Singapore Airlines flight from London that resulted in the death of one person and left 100 injured.

It was then the couple took a mental note to keep their seatbelts on throughout. Neither of the pair were injured.

The pair said the cabin crew on board had been fantastic throughout the ordeal, but it was clear that they too had been shaken by what took place.

“They looked pretty shook after it happened. One of them had a sling on her wrist, I saw others with scratches, they were walking around with ice on their faces or their arms,” Ms Power said.

“You could see that physically they were shaking after it. But I have to say, fair play to them for continuing.”

Though the couple knew what they had experienced was bad, it was only after they had landed that the seriousness of the situation hit them.

“When it happened, we knew it was serious because there were people injured on the plane,” Ms Power said. “They got us off the plane really quick but then, the lines of guards, the medics, the wheelchairs ready for people.”

The couple both said that it might be some time before they step on a plane again, though Mr Buckley hoped a planned trip to Germany at the end of the year would go ahead.

“Obviously it was so scary and it was something I’ve never experienced before, I wouldn’t want to be rushing on a long flight,” Mr Buckley said.

In a statement, the airline said the incident was now the subject of an internal investigation.