SIA cabin crew praised for retrieving woman's ring lost in plane seat: 'They constructed an entire tool'

A woman said she was "impressed" when Singapore Airlines cabin crew launched a full-scale rescue mission to retrieve her ring after it fell into a gap in her plane seat.

A video shared on social media on Monday (July 13) by user @cforcassan shows a male crew member lying on the ground as he searches beneath the passenger's seat for the lost ring. 

"Your ring falls into the depths of your plane seat and the entire cabin crew launches a rescue mission," the video captioned. 

Cassandra Tan, a 32-year-old marketing professional, told AsiaOne that she was on flight SQ912 at 11.55am from Singapore to Manila that day. 

Having gotten the ring during her first trip to China, from a Chinese brand called Hefang, Tan said that it costs approximately $200 but the sentimental value meant even more as it reminded her of the trip. 

She had briefly removed her ring and placed it on the table to apply some hand sanitiser. When she tried to put it back on, it slipped and fell into a narrow crevice beside the seat. 

Tan added that she was supposed to wait for the engineers to come on board after the plane landed. 

However, she claimed the crew had insisted on retrieving the ring, saying: "We want you to disembark smoothly and without any delays."

'Incredibly patient and kind'

She recounted to AsiaOne that the crew was "incredibly patient and kind throughout the situation".

Initially, one of them offered her a chopstick to see if the ring could be reached. She said she managed to hook it briefly, but it slipped again and rolled deeper into the seat.

Another crew member, she added, improvised a makeshift retrieval tool — consisting of two chopsticks and a DIY hook made from a bobby pin, taped together with plasters — and eventually managed to get the ring out. 

"They constructed an entire tool with whatever they had on the plane. This is now a core memory for me," said Tan.

"I was extremely relieved and grateful for the effort and ingenuity shown by the crew," she added.

"I thanked the crew profusely and immediately submitted a formal compliment through Singapore Airlines' website. I also obtained the names of the crew members on board so that I could recognise those who assisted me!"

Netizens say

Netizens in the comments praised the staff for their dedication and efforts. 

Some netizens told Cassandra to write the staff a "compliment letter" after the incident, to which she replied: "It was the first thing I did after I got the ring back." 

A netizen commented: "Really no service like SQ service." 

"Teamwork makes the dream work," another netizen praised.

One netizen recounted their own experience of dropping AirPods into their seat on a Lufthansa flight and claimed that the cabin crew had to dismantle half of the seat mid-flight.

AsiaOne has contacted Singapore Airlines for additional information. 

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esther.lam@asiaone.com