View Full Version : Monarch Depressurisation near Malaga
A Monarch Airbus had to return to Malaga today after a 'complete loss of pressurisation' approaching FL220 in the climb. No emergency declared, just a request for descent to FL100 and take up the hold at MAR before returning to the field.
All handled very calmly by the crew - hopefully a non-dramatic end to what's basically a non-event.
Just trying to prevent another 'Passenger Jet in Death Plunge' that the media seems so keen on these days. ;)
Bam Thwok
2nd Oct 2008, 16:10
My "outlaws" were on this flight...As WGW says....a non event.
No masks...no screaming/plunging descent etc etc...well done to the crew.
Airbus 321 (G-OZBR) en route to Manchester. Flight no: ZB655.
yunvi?
2nd Oct 2008, 17:14
Why no pax masks if there was total px loss @ FL220 ?
Yunvi,
It wasn't an explosive decompression where you loose all your pressurization.
In case they had a double pressurization controller fault or a double bleed failure this just means that no new air is entering the cabin. Depending on the failure the outflow vlave will close itself or is closed manually by the flight crew which reduces the loss of pressurization. Certainly from FL220 you can easily descent to below FL140 without the O2 mask deploying.
captplaystation
2nd Oct 2008, 22:09
What we need to know, 1-what is the Ryanair involvement,2 - were there any explorers on board, and 3 -as it wasn't Ryanair cheapo low cost ,I guess no one wants to make accusations of masks failing to drop ( or inflate).Thank God for that, all done and dusted then ?
Well as the cabin altitude never exceeded 14000 feet the masks wouldn't drop anyway even if it was a Ryanair flight. :O
Hello,
They decided to come back to AGP this morning in a very calm an professional manner, required to hold over MAR at FL 85, I supposed for a fuel dump, but very shortly, they were ready to continue descend to 5500 ft and completing the ILS Y approach to Malaga, perfect landing (of course) and parking into a remote position on the North platform, everything quite calm and eaaaaaasy after a loose of pressurization
Just congratulations to pilots and controllers for the good job!
Farrell
3rd Oct 2008, 00:55
'complete loss of pressurisation'
Like.....in a vacuum!
That must have been interesting for all concerned!
fatboy slim
3rd Oct 2008, 08:56
gps - not holding to dump fuel, cannot do that on this a/c type.
Holding to program, plan and brief the approach and landing.
quickturnaround
3rd Oct 2008, 12:45
So just a non-normal handled normal, a non-event thus!
MANAGP
3rd Oct 2008, 16:08
Exactly!
The sort of stuff we get paid to do!
Andy Rylance
3rd Oct 2008, 22:21
I do find it amusing when people go "all handled very well by crew calm professional and must be congratulated etc etc".. yes when it was a really tricky situation but does this count as one? All the back slapping but what do real pilots say instead of arm chair jockeys? Was it a - "I would really buy that guy a beer if I saw him in the bar" situation... that is the true judge of an incident :)
Re-Heat
3rd Oct 2008, 22:31
Well I just want to know whether the nearest school was avoided or not, and I'm not going away until I have an answer.
old-timer
3rd Oct 2008, 23:37
Back off experts, (alleged)
There was a problem, the crew performed their actions very professionally as required; result: everyone was safe, no problem
CONCLUSION :-
Top marks crew, a great job professionally performed, end of story, there is no more.
For my part; it always amazes me how many folks have an opionon about what they did, was it right etc, yet, put those same folk in a similar situaion & how would they perform ?
top tip; put yourself in the same position & consider how you would react ?
The reality is that NO ONE knows for sure until you've been there & done that.
Prologue; always consider the reality of such situations & the human factors involved, yes, those human factors courses are not there just for the 2 year cert', they are there for a reason.
Stay safe folks, fly safe, think safe, be safe !
:ok:
John Giles
3rd Oct 2008, 23:51
Yeah but the death plunge storys always sound much better.
Sunday exclusive story on the way.....I thought I was going to die said XXXX from XXXX
A37575
4th Oct 2008, 00:29
hopefully a non-dramatic end to what's basically a non-event.
In that case what is the point of reporting it on Pprune?
Trident man
4th Oct 2008, 02:22
The said aircraft was in the engine test pan at MAN yesterday.
Why no pax masks if there was total px loss @ FL220 ?
required to hold over MAR at FL 85, I supposed for a fuel dump
Remind me what PPRuNe stands for?
:ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh:
old-timer,
If a UK airline crew could not handle this, a relatively easy scenario, in a professional and calm manner then we are all up the creek. I would suggest that EVERY UK airline pilot would have been absolutely fine in these circumstances. In fact I would have thought that every airline pilot in the world would have been too.
yunvi?
4th Oct 2008, 20:38
fmgc,
I've met your sort before.
dixi188
6th Oct 2008, 15:13
I know of two cases on A300s where the Air Cond. Packs weren't turned on after take off and the A/C was through FL200 before the crew realised they weren't pressurising.
One returned to point of departure. Red faces after landing.
The other descended to FL80 to sort the problem and then continued to destination.
On neither A/C did the cabin go above 8000ft.
In each case all they had to do was turn on the packs.
For the crews sake, I hope this was a system failure, and not finger trouble.
Happy flying.
I can well remember departing LGW for LAX in one of Fred's DC-10s and getting a "Cabin Hi Alt" warning as we went through 10,000 ft.
I looked over at the F/E's panel and noticed that he had forgotten to put the packs on.
With a "gentle nudge" from me, he managed to get them on before the cabin reached 14,000 ft and so avoided an embarrassing rubber jungle, a fuel dump and a return to LGW to have a friendly chat with Fred in his office.
Now this F/E was a pretty sharp cookie but he missed something quite basic that day. I am quite sure that he never did it again.
Ever since that day I have stressed to every pilot that I have ever trained to look at the cabin pressure gauge before they get to 5,000 ft after take-off. It only takes a microsecond to check that the cabin rate of climb does not equal the aircraft rate of climb and that gives a bit of warning that you might have a problem.
Mr @ Spotty M
6th Oct 2008, 16:50
It was a bleed problem and not anything missed.
I have no doubt that in this case absolutely nothing was missed.
However, can you imagine that from here on in and on every single occasion that the rubber jungle descends for whatever reason, we are going to be regaled with at least 20 pages of total cr*p on what used to be a simple procedure posted on a professional pilots forum?
golfyankeesierra
6th Oct 2008, 18:11
fmgc and jw411 :ok:
Exactly, stopping the climb and asking for a descent isn't really worthy of so much praise as posted here on pprune.
The reason for getting in the situation and how to manage it afterwards are the interesting (and as mentioned by dixi and JW often embarressing) parts. So I will hold my praise untill we know how they coped with that.
And BTW in my book an inflight return isn't a non-event.
Troy McClure
7th Oct 2008, 10:44
Nice to see that the media completely passed this one by, no doubt helped by the repeated use of the phrase 'non-event' in this very thread.
No 'death plunge' bullsh!t on BBC News, and no further damage done to the industry. This I believe was WGW's original intention when the thread was started.
Mission accomplished.
infrequentflyer789
7th Oct 2008, 12:22
Nice to see that the media completely passed this one by, no doubt helped by the repeated use of the phrase 'non-event' in this very thread.
No 'death plunge' bullsh!t on BBC News, and no further damage done to the industry. This I believe was WGW's original intention when the thread was started.
Mission accomplished.
Or maybe not - today's BBC "plunge" story is the Qantas one, which (for while) had a photo of a Quantas tail, clearly rotated (ie. the photo) to 45deg down.
I'd also be slightly suspicious that most of the media headline writers are concentrating on plunging banks/stocks/economies right now...
OAB11D
9th Oct 2008, 13:37
Not sure if this is related but I was SF on a flight LGW-AGP-LGW on the 3rd nd 6th October the a/c was a substituted A300. The pilot on the northbound flight told us that a catering truck had damaged the A321 that was supposed to operate.
Does anyone know if this was a seperate incident or were the crew being economical with the truth.
Why would he be "economical with the truth"?
It happens far too often with catering trucks, steps etc!!
Might not be related to the subject incident at all.
smudgethecat
9th Oct 2008, 14:54
The problem was caused by a double bleed failure nothing whatsoever to do with any damage caused by a truck.
I know I have told the story before, but I will never forget going out to our DC-10 in the crew transport when I was with Laker at LGW and seeing the centre engine of a Dan Air 727 sitting on the ramp!
Believe it or not, it was knocked out by a catering truck. I would not have thought it possible but it just shows the ingenuity of catering truck captains!
im going in
9th Oct 2008, 18:10
Yr flight was upgraded to the A300, due to OZBE AOG in BHX with damage caused by a belt loader.
Many thanks for the info!
fatboy slim
12th Oct 2008, 08:25
Upgraded! Love it!
Buzz Lightyear
13th Oct 2008, 08:12
Dixi188 You should make it clear that you are not suggesting Monarch A300's took off without pressurising.
old-timer
13th Oct 2008, 22:15
:ok:CONCLUSION :-
Top marks crew, a great job professionally performed, end of story, there is no more.
(I do agree, it's a pretty standard procedure for all to 'enjoy')
Rules are great aren't they, without rules where would we be - Brussels ?
A glass of white wine for the lady & a pint for the fellla, I thankyou):sad::zzz:;):p:cool: