Originally Posted by
CloudsNSounds
a very worried sounding captain or first officer almost screamed over the intercom "Emergency Descent" 5 or so times.
Things would be getting very busy up the front. An emergency descent is a fairly abrupt manoeuvre, so the captain would need to ensure that the cabin crew knew what was happening and could grab hold of something during the descent, hence a very loud announcement.
cabin crew looking like they were on the tower of terror and had little or no training (according to my angry Dad).
Bear in mind that although the cabin crew receive training for instances like this, the first time they would have experienced this for real was last night...
If the crew consider there to be enough time to scream things like "emergency descent" over the intercom more than a few times do you disagree that there is time for them to take a few seconds for couple of choice words before exploding oxygen masks into passengers faces, killing the lights and bunting?
Time of useful conciousness for a fit and healthy adult is 30-60 seconds at 35000 feet. This will be drastically reduced for your heavy drinking, 40 a day smoking adult, so the priority would be the safety of the aircraft and the passengers by descending.
Personally I think they did a good job getting everyone on the ground safely. It always surprises me how people are angry after the event...