Our son texted us last night that the oxygen masks were deployed on his flight from Atlanta to Seattle. We got on flightaware.com and saw that his plane had dropped from 38,000 feet to 10,000 in about 5 minutes and slowed from 500 to 380. They landed in Denver after an hour or so. He was on a flight home from our daughter’s wedding in Ft. Lauderdale. All they told them was it was a “depressurization event.” Any way to find out what happened?
his plane dropped from 38,000 feet to 10,000 in about 5 minutes and slowed from 500 to 380 causing a depressurization event and deploying the air masks. They landed in Denver after an hour or so. I read it on the Beeb. I hope all is well and he had spare shorts. I would have needed them.
I mean you kinda answered our own question. They had to drop altitude to prevent hypoxia. Sounds like a job well done by the pilots.
It was not an accident or an incident, so I think there's no reporting required by the NTSB. I'm sure Part 121 operators have other things they have to report, but I doubt if any of it reaches the public. @Gino230 It was likely a problem with the pressurization system (outflow valves, computer, bleed air temp, etc). Even if you find out what it was, it won't make for a great story. On a similar note, I flew to Nassau last week on American. We were on an A320 and the airport was really busy. We did a go around from less than 100 feet when an airplane didn't clear the runway fast enough. A modern airliner with a low fuel load and a not full cabin has SO MUCH POWER. It did scare the crap out of most of the passengers though.
You got it backwards. They typically bring a plane down to a breathable altitude in a hurry after experiencing a cabin depressurization.
VASAviation on youtube covers a lot of these types of incidents. Obviously they have to be made aware of them, but if there's available communications on it they would probably do a video for something like that.
It’s reported in my MSN newsfeed. I saw it there and then noticed this thread here. Stated an emergency code was sent to air traffic controllers, but I don’t know if that means anything important.
It means there was an emergency. Dropping that kind of distance and diverting and the code being sent is all part of the same thing. Doesn't tell you the cause tho.
Yes, depressurization happened first, then they decended. The signal is putting 7700 in their Mode 3. Tells the controllers they are dealing with an emergency and the controllers move all other traffic out of the way.
These things happen. I had a pressure issue in a Lear 31 before. Oxygen masks on, declare emergency, descend to 10,000 or minimum entroute altitude. Events like these are definitely scary for the passengers, but in the grand scheme of things for pilots, it's a relatively easy problem to have. Rapid decompression because of structural failure, now that's an attention getter.