Just a little turbulence, thats all.

The aftermath of the vigorous ride

We may have all experienced turbulence on flights, but when a rough patch is so bad that the ceiling ends up covered in coffee then you know it's serious. Passengers on a recent Singapore Airlines flight were left surrounded by a chaotic mess after their flight fell 20 metres when it hit severe turbulence.

A total of 11 passengers and one crew member were injured on flight SQ308 from Singapore to London last Sunday. One passenger on the flight, who saw his coffee end up on the ceiling, managed to take pictures of the destruction which he posted to Instagram.

Alan Cross told ABC News that passengers had been warned to expect turbulence and that the breakfast service would be temporarily suspended. A short while after the seat belt sign came on, the captain issued an abrupt order for all flight attendants to take their seats immediately.

Mr Cross said the subsequent turbulence felt 'like being in an elevator with a cut cable or free-falling from some amusement park ride.'

Coffee stains managed to end up on the ceiling.

He said everything that was not tied down, including people, hit the ceiling. The airline told The Australian: 'Eleven passengers and one crew member sustained minor injuries when the aircraft experienced a sudden loss of altitude and were attended to by medical personnel on arrival at Heathrow Airport. Seat-belt signs were on at the time and meal services had already been suspended.'
Within just an hour, the carnage had been almost completely tidied up and the plane was practically back to normal.

Mr Cross said: 'The cabin crew was amazing in the aftermath, as were fellow passengers who helped everyone around them then in a calm and efficient clean-up.'

He said crew checked for injuries before cleaning up the mess and gave passengers boxes of chocolates as they departed at Heathrow, where they were met by paramedics.

All for one and one for all

Imagine that you’re a student and you use the local transport to get to school, college, university or workplace. Then you use your ID badge to get in. At lunch you decide to go into town and get your food from a nearby sandwich bar and gain points on your loyalty card.

After a while you start to get confused with all the different badges and cards that you own. Only if there was just one card that you could use for just about anything.

This is not a dream, it has become reality in some countries. In Taiwan they have a "Easycard" and they use it for almost everything. From tracking students' attendance to pay for parking. But Taiwan isn't the only place that has this system. In Hong Kong they have a similar system called the "Octopus".

The Octopus card was first set up to use for MTR and most bus routes in Hong Kong. Once it became widely used, the Octopus card started to be used to pay for goods in shops and vending machines. Many schools started to use them to track there students and there attendance.

There have been failed attempts to have the same system set up here in the UK with the "Oyster" card. Mainly because there wasn't a large enough demand for it and no one was aware that it had happened.

The Easycard is currently in talks with smart-cards providers in other Asian countries, including Octopus in Hong Kong, Ez-link in Singapore and T-Money in South Korea but there have been concerns in Taiwan and Hong Kong that people may feel uneasy to use one card everywhere.

Husband and father of two from Taiwan said "We like our Easycard because it's very convenient," he said.

"But who knows what the other governments think - I'd feel uneasy to use one card everywhere. And how would they manage the conversion rate - if I use my Easycard with Taiwanese dollars on it in Japan, the card will be empty in seconds."

Security is more of an issue when the Easycard is also used as an ID card. Then it shows the owner's name and picture - and it could allow an intruder into your office.

"In that case, losing it would be just like losing your keys, you have to act swiftly and call Easycard to cancel it right away." says Jason Chen, from security company Sophos, in Taipei.

"The money on your card can be stolen, for example by using a dongle to make false transactions - but we can identify whether the card reader was issued by our company. We only accept transactions from our card readers."

Once somebody hacked one of the cards and loaded it with more - fake - money. As soon as the card was used, the company spotted the fraud and alerted police.