When the stewardess recommends keeping your seat belt fastened for the flight, they are not joking !

From todays (UK) Times Newspaper :-

TWENTY-NINE passengers were injured when turbulence rocked a British Airways jet flying from Brisbane to Singapore last night. Seven were taken to hospital with broken bones.

BA Flight 16, a Boeing 747 with 243 passengers on board, was 50 minutes from Singapore when it hit severe turbulence. One passenger, Barry White, 59, a mechanical superintendent from Brisbane, estimated that the worst bout lasted only 30 seconds but sent people "flying around the cabin".

"The plane was massively jumping up and down," he said. "Someone went through the panel of the ceiling. All I could see were a pair of legs hanging out. There were broken arms, broken legs."

Mr White said his safety belt, which he had kept fastened, had saved him from injury.

Witnesses at Singapore's Changi International Airport arrival area said that they had seen at least five people taken in wheelchairs to emergency vehicles, while others from the flight had been taken to an airport clinic.

British Airways confirmed that seven people had been taken to hospital as a result of the incident, one with a broken wrist, another with a broken arm, and others with head, back and limb injuries. None of the injuries was said to be life-threatening.

Another 22 had been treated at the airport clinic and been deemed fit to continue their journeys.

A British Airways spokesman said: "It is very exceptional indeed for such severe turbulence to hit unexpectedly and to cause injuries to this extent."