This week the Air Crash Investigations episode that was shown (here in Australia) depicted the Air Canada DC9 emergency landing at Cincinnati airport in 1983.
As someone interested in civil aviation and aviation crash investigations, I enjoy watching this show. I appreciate that licensed pilots may not find it entirely accurate and it is after all dramatised for TV. I would however hope that there is a fair amount of truth that goes into each episode.
My question relates to the decision of the pilots not to drop the oxygen masks in the passenger cabin. This was after the fire had been burning and the smoke visible for a considerable amount of time. The cabin, towards the latter part of the flight, was depicted as being filled with the noxious/poisonous smoke, and as a result the passengers had tremendous difficulty breathing (choking, coughing, etc).
The documentary mentioned the non-deployment of the oxygen masks, and there were several comments/interviews with the actual PIC (who survived) that were conducted for this episode. The PIC commented that he didn't deploy the oxygen masks, because he is only allowed to in the event of decompression (or perhaps they deploy automatically?)
It seems ironic that the PIC was subsequently shown putting on his emergency oxygen mask in the cockpit.
The coroner found most (or all) of the deceased had excessive amounts of Carbon Monoxide (and other poisons) in their blood.
So I'm just wondering - was there really a rule that prevented pilots from dropping the oxygen masks in this type of situation? Is such a rule still in place? Is such a rule sensible? And why does it exist?
Any feedback is greatly appreciated.