A senior lecturer in aviation operations at Buckinghamshire New University has shared his thoughts after a British passenger in-flight following severe turbulence.

On May 21, Singapore Airlines Flight 321 was taking 229 people from London Heathrow to Singapore Changi Airport before having to make an emergency landing in Bangkok, Thailand.

Severeturbulence over Myanmar, resulted in a 73-year-old man from Britain suffering a heart attack and subsequently passing away, whilst 104 people suffered injuries.

Singapore Airlines said the flight encountered ‘sudden extreme turbulence’ over Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Basin at 37,000 feet about 10 hours after departure, with the pilot declaring a medical emergency and diverting the plane to Bangkok.

Experts have described turbulence as ‘common’ and asserted that it ‘rarely’ leads to fatalities, but what is it and how dangerous can it be?

Marco Chan, from Bucks New Uni, told the PA news agency, that turbulence is generally divided into four types.

“Turbulence is of course dangerous and that is why we have so many lines of defence to try to avoid them when we can.

“If we cannot, we react to it.

“That is why it is quite rare for this to be on the news, quite rare for fatalities, injuries.

“It is always invisible to the pilot or even to weather radar systems – it doesn’t pick up the turbulence on any of our screens or displays – so we just have to base that on our own experience.

“And of course, if we see a thunderstorm in front of us, or we are in clouds, we know there’s going to be turbulence associated, so we try to avoid them.

“We don’t know we’re encountering turbulence until we encounter them basically,”

What is turbulence?

Turbulence is the chaotic movement of air which can cause the sudden movement of an aircraft in flight, the Met Office said.

It can be caused by ‘waves’ of air, which form upon contact with mountains and which can end up hitting an aircraft ‘like ocean waves crashing onto a beach’, by jet streams and thunderstorms, with a final type known as ‘wake turbulence.’

Wake turbulence occurs as the result of an aircraft producing lift, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The incident was Singapore Airlines' first fatal aviation occurrence since the Flight 006 crash 24 years ago, where 83 people were killed.