I am very surprised by the number of pro pilots on this forum who consider the after descent P.A., was not necessary.
In fact the P.A. is essential to restaure the confidence of passsengers seriously shocked by the incident. They were already nervous due to last week accidents, and now they are in an overheated aircraft with a definite smell of burn, they breathe with difficulty from an oxygen mask and nobody to explain what the ****’s going on and that they can discard the mask and that the emergency is dealt with.
Had this PA been made, far less passengers would have had ear pain, because they would have been more relaxed, and maybe the crew would have done a proper job by completing the emergency drill to the end and performed a smooth depressurized approach.
Regarding Automatic P.A. when the masks drop, at least one aircraft (Fokker 100 ) is fitted with this very useful device and this aircraft was designed in the seventies... but BOEING is often lagging behind.
Last edited by Baron rouge; 26th Aug 2008 at 13:12.
Reason: add info