International
The testimony of a passenger of the Singapore Airlines flight: “The plane trembled and, a second later, fell”
“The plane trembled and, a second later, it rushed,” says a Canadian passenger who was traveling on the Singapore Airlines flight that had to make an emergency landing in Bangkok the day before after “sudden and strong turbulence,” which caused one death and dozens of injuries.
“There was no warning. The plane began to tremble and, a second later, it rushed. Everything lasted about two seconds,” the passenger, who prefers to preserve his identity and was traveling with his wife, tells EFE in a telephone conversation.
Both came out unscathed from the incident because they were wearing seat belts – “we felt like we were on a roller coaster,” he describes, “but we didn’t jump out of the seat” -, unlike other unmoored passengers who were in front and around.
“They flew to the ceiling, hitting it and falling again… Other objects, such as the carts (for food and drink), too… There were so many blows that you could see holes in the panels (of the device),” he says.
The man, residing in Singapore – the final destination of flight SQ321, which covered the route from London to the city-Asian state – considers that the moment of the shock – about 2.5 hours before landing and ten hours after takeoff, when flying over Burma – was “very unfortunate.”
“Everyone was waking up, going to the bathroom, the crew preparing breakfast… If it had happened an hour earlier, with almost everyone sleeping, the damage would have been minimal,” he says.
“Many crew members were injured because they were not seated, most of them limped or bled afterwards,” he adds.
The deceased is a 73-year-old British theater director, victim of a heart attack, and among the dozens injured, about twenty are in intensive care, according to a statement today from the Samitivej hospital in Bangkok, in whose centers most of those affected were admitted.
According to the Canadian, a doctor who was traveling on the plane tried to save the British man’s life unsuccessfully and after “a lot of effort”.
Among the injured is a 42-year-old Spanish citizen who was traveling with his wife, 38, and who presents “a bruise,” according to EFE.
The Spaniard, whose identity and age have not transcended at the moment, “hit himself with the roof,” because he did not wear a seat belt at the time of the sudden turbulence, and “he does not have any fracture, it is just a contusion,” according to sources close to the case told EFE.
For their part, the Canadian citizen and his wife are already in Singapore, as they were part of the 131 passengers and 12 crew members who traveled this morning on a flight chartered by the airline, whose executive director, Goh Choon Phong, apologized today for the “traumatic experience.”
Another 79 passengers and six crew members remain in Bangkok, including those who are receiving medical assistance and the relatives who were traveling with them.
As reported yesterday by the airline, the plane carried 211 passengers and 18 crew members, most of them Australians (56), British (47) and Singaporeans (41), as well as two Spaniards.
According to the FlightRadar portal, which records flights around the world, the aircraft, a Boeing 777-300 ER, suffered a sudden loss of altitude for 4 minutes for which it descended from 37,000 to 31,000 feet (from 11,200 meters to 9,400 meters), when it apparently managed to stabilize.
However, according to the story of the Canadian interviewed by EFE, which coincides with that of other passengers, the abrupt descent caused by the turbulence was just seconds, so that those almost 2,000 meters of altitude loss would also include the pilot’s deliberate descent time after the shock.
Once the plane regained stability, the crew proceeded to make a count of the injured. “When it was confirmed that there were several critics, the pilot announced the emergency landing,” which took place at Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok around 15:45 local time (8:45 GMT) on Tuesday.
The executive director of Singapore Airlines, Goh Choon Phong, today apologized for the “traumatic experience” of the flight and his “most sincere condolences to the relatives and loved ones of the deceased,” in a video released by the airline.
Singapore Airlines, the second best airline in the world after Qatar Airways according to the World Airlines Awards, assured today that it is “fully cooperating” with the authorities for the investigation of the incident.
A total of 20 passengers are admitted to intensive care units (ICU) in two hospitals in Bangkok, health sources reported on Wednesday.
The injured in the ICU are British (6), Malaysian (6), Australian (3), Singaporean (2), New Zealander (1), Filipino (1) and a Hong Kong national, according to the latest update from the Samitivej hospital.
The source, however, did not specify in its statement the problems recorded by the inpatients, which in a previous statement put six patients in serious condition.
This hospital also points out that another 38 injured passengers are already in the plant, including a Spaniard, while another 27 and 19 people who were treated for minor injuries at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport have already been discharged.
International
Trump appoints Stallone, Voight, and Gibson as special ambassadors to Hollywood
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced on Thursday the appointment of actors Sylvester Stallone (‘Rocky’) and Jon Voight (‘Midnight Cowboy’), as well as actor and director Mel Gibson (‘Braveheart’) as special ambassadors to the “very problematic” Hollywood.
“They will help me as special envoys to make Hollywood, which has lost many overseas businesses in the last four years, COME BACK BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER,” he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.
The Republican lamented all the “problems” he claims Hollywood faces and created this role with the aim of improving the situation from a business perspective.
“These three talented men will be my eyes and ears. I will do whatever they suggest,” he said.
Stallone had previously described Trump as the second George Washington, the first U.S. president (1789–1797) and one of the nation’s founding fathers, during a dinner after his victory in the November presidential elections, where he served as the master of ceremonies.
Meanwhile, Gibson attacked Trump’s rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, accusing her of having “the IQ of a fence.”
The Republican leader will be sworn in as president on January 20 on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, succeeding Democrat Joe Biden.
International
Latin American and Caribbean diplomats voice concern over U.S. mass deportation plan
Diplomatic chiefs from ten Latin American and Caribbean countries expressed their “serious concern” over the announcement of a mass deportation of migrants, a measure they consider incompatible with human rights, according to a joint statement released this Friday.
The statement, which does not attribute the measure to any specific country, refers to the announcement made by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to carry out the largest foreign deportation operation in the history of the nation once he takes office next Monday. “The announcements of mass deportations are a serious cause for concern, especially due to their incompatibility with the fundamental principles of human rights and their failure to effectively address the structural causes of migration,” the statement said, released by Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE).
The signing countries—Brazil, Belize, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela (almost all migrant-sending nations)—also committed to “defend the human rights of all migrants.”
This includes “rejecting the criminalization of migrants at all stages of the migration cycle” and “protecting them as a priority from transnational organized crime that profits from migration,” the document adds.
International
Noboa once again entrusts the Vice President of Ecuador to the vice president he appointed by decree
The President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, returned this Thursday to delegate – for the second time – the Presidency to the Secretary of Public Administration and Cabinet of the Presidency Cynthia Gellibert, whom he himself appointed by decree vice president in charge, in the face of the open confrontation he maintains with the vice president, Verónica Abad.
As he did last week, Noboa again issued a decree in which he announces that he is absent from the Presidency from Thursday to Sunday, to make an electoral campaign in search of his re-election in the elections of February 9, and during that period of time it will be Gellibert who will be in charge of the head of the State.
This action of the president of Ecuador is a matter of evaluation by the ordinary and constitutional justice at the request of the vice president, Verónica Abad, who claims to assume the presidential functions during the full period of the electoral campaign, in which according to the Constitution the head of state must ask for leave for being a candidate for re-election.
In his decree, Noboa argues that, although the Constitution determines that the Vice Presidency must assume the head of State in the event of the absence of the president, this “is not limited to the elected vice-president, but to the person who to date is exercising the functions of the Vice Presidency.”
Before appointing Gellibert as vice president in charge by decree, Noboa sent Abad to the Ecuadorian Embassy in Turkey, after a judge annulled the five-month suspension that the same Government had imposed on him. Until now, the vice president remains in Ecuador to claim to be the one who temporarily assumes the Presidency.
The new period of Gellibert with presidential powers began at 18:00 local time (23:00 GMT) this Thursday and is scheduled to end at 22:00 (03:00 GMT) next Sunday, time at which the debate between presidential candidates is expected to end where Noboa is summoned to participate.
After the debate, Noboa plans to travel to Washington to attend Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, according to the Ecuadorian Presidency.
After the first assignment of the Presidency to Gellibert, Abad denounced a “coup d’état” and urged the Organization of American States (OAS) to apply the Democratic Charter, considering that the constitutional order had been broken because it had not received the presidential powers, as contemplated in the Ecuadorian Constitution.
In addition, he filed a protection action with which he seeks that the Justice annul the decrees in which Noboa appointed Gellibert as vice president in charge and delegated the Presidency to him. A court admitted the appeal on Friday, but did not accept some precautionary measures that Abad also asked for to suspend those effects immediately.
Controversies like this will be part of the analysis and evaluation of the electoral observation mission (EOM) of the European Union (EU) for the Ecuadorian elections, as anticipated on Wednesday by its leader, Spanish MEP Gabriel Mato.
The confrontation between Noboa and Abad began in the electoral campaign for the second round of elections for the extraordinary elections of 2023, and was reflected when he assumed the charges, when in one of his first decisions, the president sent the vice president to Israel as ambassador, with the mission of seeking peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Abad has denounced Noboa for alleged political gender violence and has accused her of leading a harassment against her to force her to resign and thus avoid having to delegate the Presidency to her during the electoral campaign period, which runs from January 5 to February 6.
The titular vice president has also accused the Government of being behind the corruption investigation in the offices of the Vice Presidency that involves her son in a case where the Prosecutor’s Office also sought to indict Abad, but the National Assembly (Parliament) voted mostly against lifting the jurisdiction, although the ruling party voted in favor.
The general elections in Ecuador are called for Sunday, February 9 and, according to the polls published so far, Noboa and the candidate of the correismo Luisa González appear as prominent favorites to move on to the second round.
Trump appoints Stallone, Voight, and Gibson as special ambassadors to Hollywood
Latin American and Caribbean diplomats voice concern over U.S. mass deportation plan
Noboa once again entrusts the Vice President of Ecuador to the vice president he appointed by decree
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
Defense Minister commends salvadoran soldier for Central American Cross Country victory
Ecuador prison riot leaves at least 43 dead
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