Any official reports to back up "several pax and crew fainting"?
Report mentions the flight "lost partial cabin pressure", which is rather undefined right now.
AMR Flight Is Diverted to Ohio After Six Sickened by Partial Pressure Loss - Bloomberg
An
American Airlines jet lost partial cabin pressure in flight, sickening six people on board, and made an emergency landing in Ohio.
Flight 547 had climbed to 28,000 feet from
Washington’s Reagan National airport en route to
Chicago when two attendants reported feeling dizzy,
Tim Smith, an American spokesman, said today. The captain deployed oxygen masks as a precaution as four passengers also reported feeling ill or faint, Smith said.
“We believe this is a cabin pressurization issue, which can have multiple causes,” Smith said in an interview. Three passengers and one attendant on the twin-engine Boeing Co. 737-800 jet went to a hospital to be checked out, Smith said.
Pilots are trained to respond to any unexpected change in onboard pressure by descending as quickly as possible to about 10,000 feet, said Bill Waldock, a professor of safety science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott,
Arizona. Supplemental oxygen isn’t required at that altitude.
Flight 547 landed without incident at Dayton,
Ohio, at 8:20 a.m., about an hour and 10 minutes after takeoff, Smith said. It carried 126 passengers and six crew, he said.
The plane’s Washington departure was delayed by about 30 minutes after mechanics for
Fort Worth, Texas-based American conducted an unspecified inspection, Smith said. He couldn’t confirm whether the pressurization system was involved.
Gradual Leaks
Partial depressurizations happen “once or twice a month” on commercial airliners as leaks develop gradually around seals or in the pressurization system, Waldock said. The pressure loss may be so minor that it doesn’t require a diversion and emergency landing, he said.
“If it happens slowly, it feels kind of euphoric, like you’ve had a couple drinks” of alcohol, he said. “Most people recover pretty fast. Oxygen from the cabin masks is going to help a lot. It feeds in oxygen that’s mixed with outside air and it’ll help people breathe easier.”
An American MD-80 flown to Dayton picked up the passengers and departed for Chicago O’Hare at 12:57 p.m. local time. Mechanics flew on the plane to Dayton to check out the affected 737-800.