text: Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Footage shows the aftermath of the turbulence which threw passengers into the aisles 
   
   At least 27 people were hurt when an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Bangkok hit a patch of severe turbulence. 
   
   No injuries were life-threatening, but several passengers suffered broken bones and three needed surgery, Russian officials said. 
   
   A passenger described being "hurled" up to the ceiling, trying to cling on amid shaking which "wouldn't stop". 
   
   The turbulence occurred in clear skies, which meant the crew were not able to warn passengers, the airline said. 
   
   "The reasons behind the injures were that some of the passengers had not had their seatbelts fastened," Aeroflot said in a statement. 
   
   Image copyright Reuters Image caption The plane was a Boeing 777, carrying 313 passengers 
   
   'Impossible to predict' 
   
   Mobile phone footage of the aftermath of the incident showed injured people lying in the aisles, with packets of food and other items scattered on the floor. 
   
   "We were hurled up into the roof of the plane, it was practically impossible to hold on," a passenger who gave her first name as Yevgenia told Rossiya 24 by phone. 
   
   "It felt like the shaking wouldn't stop, that we would just crash," she added. 
   
   The pilot, Aleksandr Ruzov, said the turbulence was "impossible to predict", in an interview with the Russia 24 news channel. 
   
   He said the worst effects were felt at the back of the plane. 
   
   What is Clear Air Turbulence? 
   
   CAT - clear air turbulence - is turbulence that occurs in otherwise calm, clear blue skies, without any visual indication such as clouds. 
   
   It is caused when masses of air moving at different speeds meet, and can't be identified by the naked eye or conventional radar. 
   
   Pilots use reports from other aircraft, passed on via air traffic control, to keep track of patches of clear air turbulence. 
   
   Why is in-flight turbulence so unpredictable? 
   
   Atlantic turbulence 'to hit flights', climate scientists say 
   
   The incident took place about 40 minutes before the Boeing 777 carrying 313 passengers was due to land in Bangkok. 
   
   Twenty-four of those injured were Russians while the other three were Thai, the Russian embassy in Thailand said. 
   
   Fifteen people, including one child, were admitted to hospitals in Bangkok, a health ministry spokesman told the Russian news agency Interfax. 
   
   Three people needed surgery, two for multiple leg fractures and one for broken ribs, he said. 
   
   By early evening on Monday, 14 passengers remained in hospital, according to Aeroflot, which has said it will pay the medical costs of the injured. 
   
   The airline said the pilot's experience amounted to more than 23,000 flight hours and that about 750 cases of clear-air turbulence are recorded in civil aviation every year. ||||| Flight from Moscow hit pocket of ‘clear air’, throwing passengers into the ceiling and leaving some with broken bones 
   
   Severe turbulence has injured 27 people on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Bangkok, with passengers thrown into the aircraft’s ceiling, leaving some with broken bones. 
   
   
   
   The Boeing 777 hit a pocket of “clear air” turbulence – where there is no telltale cloud pattern or radar presence to warn pilots of the change in air pressure – as the flight prepared to land in Bangkok, shortly after midnight on Monday. 
   
   Denis Antonyuk, an official at Russia’s embassy in Bangkok said 24 Russian nationals and three Thai citizens were injured on flight SU270. 
   
   “Fifteen Russians and two Thais are still in hospital,” he told AFP, adding the rest had been discharged. 
   
   Aeroflot said none of the passengers were in a serious condition, and although several had broken bones, none had suffered spinal compression fractures, as had been reported earlier on Monday. 
   
   The turbulence hit about 40 minutes before the aircraft was due to land, and was “impossible to foresee”, with the crew unable to warn passengers to return to their seats and buckle their seatbelts, Aeroflot said. The flight was operated by an experienced crew, it added, including a pilot who had logged more than 23,000 flight hours. 
   
   The Russian embassy in Bangkok told Reuters: “The reason behind the injuries was that some of the passengers had not had their seatbelts fastened.” 
   
   
   
   Images taken by a passenger and posted on Instagram showed the aircraft’s cabin in disarray, with passengers lying in the aisles and items scattered on the floor in the galleys. 
   
   Facebook Twitter Pinterest Passengers lying on floor after Aeroflot flight encountered severe turbulence. Photograph: Reuters 
   
   “We were hurled up into the roof of the plane, it was practically impossible to hold on,” a passenger, who gave her first name Yevgenia, told Rossiya 24 by phone. “It felt like the shaking wouldn’t stop, that we would just crash.” 
   
   During the Soviet era, Aeroflot had an appalling safety record, with 27 accidents killing 780 people in 1973 alone. It had 721 accidents in 44 years, though Aeroflot was the largest airline in the world at the time, carrying many times more passengers than its international rivals. 
   
   The airline’s safety record has improved since the collapse of the Soviet Union, although 88 passengers and crew were killed in 2008 when a plane crashed preparing to land in Perm, Russia. 
   
   The airline is ranked 37 out of 60 in the 2017 airline safety rankings compiled by the Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Center, above Alitalia and Air France.
target: – Some passengers were hurled to the ceiling Monday when an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Bangkok hit a patch of turbulence so severe that dozens of passengers were injured. The Boeing 777 hit what's known as "clear air turbulence" around 40 minutes before landing in Bangkok, where 27 passengers were hospitalized, some with broken bones, the Guardian reports. The airline is paying for their treatment, though it says the injuries were definitely not its fault. "The reasons behind the injures were that some of the passengers had not had their seatbelts fastened," Aeroflot said in a statement. Passenger Rostik Rusev tells CNN that it lasted for 10 terrifying seconds. "There was blood on the ceiling, people with broken noses, babies who were hurt. It was horrible. It came out of nowhere. It was like driving a car and a tire suddenly bursts," Rusev says, adding: "The aircraft personnel couldn't have been more professional and courageous. They were heroes in everything they were doing." There are hundreds of cases every year—usually milder ones—of aircraft encountering clear air turbulence, which is caused when masses of air moving at different speeds meet, the BBC reports. Pilots rely on each other to report turbulence pockets they encounter in skies that appear clear and calm.