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paparomeodelta
29th Aug 2012, 10:05
Piece from swedish daily DN (google tran):

Luften i planet höll på att ta slut - DN.SE (http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/luften-i-planet-holl-pa-att-ta-slut)

Norwegian flight running out of oxygen

The air conditioning system collapsed, it became unbearably hot, and the air was running out. Halfway between Athens and Oslo forced the pilot to take the plane down. "I was scared for my life," said passenger Vasiliki Tsaktsira.

It was last Sunday that Norwegian's flight 1885 from Athens to Oslo turned into a misery journey. Even before the start there were problems with the air conditioning, and technicians work delayed departure by a few hours.

Once up in the air was the heat of the Boeing 737 - the cabin soon excruciating, says Vasiliki Tsaktsira for DN.se.

- It was so hot, maybe 45 degrees, it was getting hard to breathe. I'm a doctor, I know what it means to not get air. And with the pressure drop can have the same symptoms as decompression sickness.

- It was the worst experience of my life. I have flown a lot, but now I was terrified for the first time.

The front end of the cabin passengers could always see a person from the crew continue to try to fix the air problem.

Another passenger who contacted DN.se, a man who traveled with her four year old daughter, say they have seen a yellow tube-like objects sitting mounted on the plane during boarding. From there it is pumped to all appearances fresh air into the cabin, for as soon as the "tube" was removed and the plane would lift "all hell broke loose."

"I can not describe my frustration when I saw my child to suffer from the heat," the man in an email. "I was very close to panic." He and Vasiliki Tsaktsiras are confident that the airline knew that the fault was still there but chose to lift anyway.

After a few hours, when you come about halfway, told the pilot that the problem could not fix, that the cabin pressure was getting low and therefore had to take down the plane in Budapest. Shortly before landing, the passengers got water.

At Budapest Airport was referred to the around 140 passengers to the transit hall. No Norwegianpersonal in sight, and no one could be reached on the phone, according Vasiliki Tsaktsira.

- It was totally unacceptable. They left us alone, she says.

After four hours isolated at the airport without food and liquid, and with no information about what would happen were the stranded group to a hotel, where they would continue to wait. There also were provided with food and drink. The man with a four year old daughter had never know anything about the hotel.

Some of the passengers were eventually income from Norwegian on their mobiles that a compensation plan had been put in and would lift the Oslo at 01:55.

- Then we had to check in again and everyone was tired and upset. Exhausted babies crying and toddlers tried to get some sleep in their parents' arms, says Vasiliki Tsaktsira ..

Half five on Monday morning was flight 1885's passengers finally landed in Oslo, twelve and a half hours late.

Vasiliki Tsaktsira and five other six passengers were then further jams before they could come up with a connecting flight to Stockholm, which was their final destination. Getting to work on Monday was difficult or impossible.

Norwegian confirms that there was something wrong with the plane's air conditioning system before starting, and that was what made the departure was delayed a few hours. But this had been corrected before the start, according to the company's CIO Lars Sandaker-Nielsen.

- It was fixed on the ground. But against all odds, we had the same error when the flight arrived into the air, he says to DN.se.

Sandaker-Nielsen is not, however, agree that the situation would have had time to become dangerous for the occupants before they went down in Budapest, and he does not call the landing for an emergency landing.

- What I can confirm is that it was warmer in the cabin than it should be

Chuchinchow
31st Aug 2012, 00:22
Seems like a badly edited Daily Mail scare story to me.

Agaricus bisporus
2nd Sep 2012, 11:32
Sounds like a sad attempt to make a drama out of an air conditioning pack malfunction that resulted in overheating and pressurisation problems which was apparently rectified (or they thought it was, because no way would they despatch if they thought it wasn't) which reoccurred in the air as snags sometimes do. Uncomfortable and perhaps distressing for the easily distressed, but hazardous? Hardly. Running out of oxygen? Complete, utter bolleaux. Authoratative sounding but inaccurate and incorrect comments from a "doctor" - a doctor of what? Divinity perhaps? who doesn't know what decompression sickness is being used to back up a faulty assumption of hazard - pure misleading daily mail style rubbish. Clearly no hazardous loss of pressure as the oxygen masks didn't deploy so no safety risk. Customer care badly managed by the airline after the diversion? Possibly - and that's where the sour grapes come from I suspect.
Pathetic sacremongering gutter journalism hype? Undoubtably.

A non story.

angels
3rd Sep 2012, 12:03
They always could have opened a window for crying out loud.