Ryanair Loss of Pressurisation 25th Aug

[Mercenary Pilot]

But unfortunately the media have chosen to give air time to a man who is saying that the O2 generators had failed because the bags didn't inflate. So now we will have pax who think that the bag should inflate because some previously unknown rambler on TV said so.

At the end of the day, crews are highly trained for these situations, passengers are NOT!

And crews are also trained to understand this fact. Hence why we try to give them pertinent information during flight to try to keep them at ease and comfortable (e.g. clear air turbulence or after a missed approach). Unfortunately this is generally not possible during an emergency because we are busy making sure that the aircraft is under control and in a position to make a safe landing that everybody walks away from.

[Dairyground]

After almost 50 years experience as SLF on types ranging from Super Constellation and DC7C to B777 and A340, I have managed to absorb that:

- you push the metal tongue of the seatbelt into the bit with the handle and unfasten it by raising the handle (though some of the early ones may not have worked exactly like that);

- there is a life jacket under my Economy seat that goes on over my head and is fastened by winding these straps around my waist and fastening them in a double bow, that it has a light that comes on when it is wet, a whistle for attracting attention, and tubes that can be used for topping up the air;

- I should wait until I am outside the aircraft before pulling the red tab to inflate my lifejacket (in case I get stuck in the door/window/elsewhere);

- opening a main door will deploy the slide, but if it does not inflate there is a red tab to be pulled;

- there are floor-level lights to guide me to the available exits, the nearest of which may be behind me (count the rows);

- I should remove my high heels before jumping onto the slide (not sitting down and pushing off), and possibly remove loose items such as spectacles;

- oxygen masks may appear due to lack of air pressure, in which case pull the mask towards me and put it on, securing it with an elastic strap that goes behind my head - and only then look to see if small children or anyone else requires assistance. The act of pulling the mask down towards my face turns on the oxygen flow. The plastic bag does not inflate.

- there are special provisions for small children.

By the time I hear all this I will be settled in my seat, with my seat belt fastened and have reviewed the safety card from the seat pocket in front of me. So if I am reading something interesting I may not give the briefing my full attention. Despite the frequent assertion that all aircraft are different, I may know that I sat through the same briefing on this particular one only a few hours ago. So not all of us who fail to give the briefing our full attention are completely blameworthy.

I have never been in a situation where masks deployed, so I cannot speak from experience on that point. However, it does seem to be a good idea that deployment should be accompanied by an automated message, loud enough to be heard above the noise and in the reduced pressure, containing information on what to do and what to expect. It might even contain an (altitude dependent) segment indicating how much longer the masks will be needed.

It would be nice to have some indication of how hard to pull the mask towards you, but it's a very hard thing to put into words. It might be better if the demonstration could include the realistic appearance of a dummy mask from the ceiling to initial dangle height, with the demonstrator then pulling it down to face level. That would be much more informative than the usual practice of just holding a coil of plastic tubing at arms length with one hand and giving a perfunctory dab of the mask to the face with the other, taking care not to disturb ones hair by actually putting on the mask properly.

One set of questions remains in my mind after all of this, never answered in any briefing I have heard: if the transparent bag does not inflate, why is it there, what can cause it to inflate, and what does it mean if it does blow up?

[wings folded]

I recently took a bus ride. Prior to departing the stop where I boarded, the driver did not deliver a speech informing me that "in the event of an unexpected loss of tyre pressure I will carry out some rather unusual steering corrections"

Nor, I imagine, had the unexpected loss of pressure occurred, would he have said "We have a slighlty unusual situation here, which I thought I would explain to you, and when I have finished, if I have some spare time I will start to think about what to do about it."

Pre flight briefings cannot cover everything and are so rarely listened to anyway (I must be one of the few sad old farts who does listen every time even though I am an SLF of some seniority). Qantas, Ryanair... The crew did what they are trained to do and without fuss.

Maybe aircrew should announce routinely when at Top of Descent "we are now starting to plummet towards Heathrow (or Gatwich or Stansted or whatever)

It would take away the terror of passengers or at least deprive them of the hyperbole when interviewed afterwards

[itsresidualmate]

Dairyground, if your bum is on the seat and the mask is on your face then the pin is pulled and the candle's burning. The lanyard won't reach a face that's sat on a seat.

And a demonstration of the force required to pull the mask? My two year old daughter would have the pin out without even trying! As any engineer will tell you, just looking at an oxy generator pin is enough to have the bloody thing fall out!

[mattford51]

Duckbutt.

A good indication of the oxygen mask not working is when you keel over and lose consciousness.

[otto_25]

letter to Mr Hadow

this guy is a dick I'm sorry but had to have my say,,,

posted on his personal web site.............


mr hadow

are you aware that ryanair does 1100 flights per day over europe? and in 2007 just over 40 million passengers alone without any major issues,
were you expecting the pilots to give a live comentary while trying to deal with the emergency and concentrate with saftey of getting the plane to a safe level?
did you even listen to the safety briefing or look at the safety cards on how to activate the oxygen masks?
the fact that you are here talking about it proves there was O2 suplied to you other wise you would have been unconcious

I dont no If its because your moment of glory has passed and you are trying to get back in the lime light, but i think what you are saying is the biggest load of fictional rubish i have heard in a long time,
the only reson the news took note of it was for the fact every small thing that is arising in the aviation world at the moment is being made a big deal of after the fatal spanair flight. if it wasnt for that it wouldnt have even made the headlines,,

[Paddington]

Passenger safety briefing

In theory it might be a good idea to have more passenger information available about what could happen in a non-normal situation. It would be good if passengers (and press) realised that an emergency descent is the correct and safest pilot response to a depressurisation.

However where do you draw the line? e.g. Do you tell passengers about the yaw to be expected in the event of an engine failure? Or what smoke in the cabin would really be like. Or how loud it will be if the landing gear doesn't retract properly? And what about the 1001 other possible events that could happen on any particular flight?

And would you really want this in the pre-flight safety demo - instead of 4 minutes it would turn into the length of a 4 hour sim check!

Perhaps we could have a little more written info though on the safety briefing card for those interested. What do you think, would that be reassuring or unduly worrying?

[marchino61]

Out of all the survivable emergency events, surely depressurisation is the most common?

I mean, landing on water....and surviving...how many times has it happened? Single figures?

then there is the emergency landing with slides....happens occasionally.

I would imagine the depressurisation events are far commoner and almost 100% survivable.

So I would say it would pay to give a bit more emphasis to this and explain in the safety briefing exactly what will happen.

[ChrisLKKB]

Picking through the bones, it sounds as if everything went according to the training manuals, the guys up front acted properly, the cabin crew acted properly and the aircraft systems worked properly......not much of a story really is it ? (except as long as my assumptions are correct, well done to the crew)

You can't do anything about the public making a drama out of a non-crisis but with regard to the workshy mountain climber, judging by his web site he's not lacking in self promotional skills, it sounds like he's used this incident to gain a bit of free publicity at the expense of putting the company and crew is a bad light....what a dick!

Regarding making a PA, it's been mentioned that the crew were probably donning their own oxygen masks and the chaps up front were a bit busy so they weren't able to make any announcements. What I don't think has been mentioned is that the cabin crew probably didn't know exactly what was happening themselves, i've no doubt they had a good idea but surely it's not their job to preempt the Captain?

As for recorded messages, it would be a bit of a sod if the wrong one went off because it's impossible to cover every eventuality giving mis leading information.

Anyone care to speculate what the possible causes of explosive depressurisation are on that aircraft are ?

[otto_25]

well said!! couldnt have worded it better my self PMSL

[theron]

pax

first let me say the pilot not saying anything until the situation was safe is a no brainer.

also, people should listen to the pre flight safety briefing, even if you have heard it a million times already since you may distract someone else who needs to hear it or cause other passengers to become complacent when its their 1st time.

i have never experienced a depressurisation, but im confident i would know what to do and how to behave. however something has struck me as being a bit strange, there seems to be no obvious, consistent indication that the oxygen is flowing?

i think a visual indication that a passenger could use to see if they have correctly tugged at the oxygen masks might help? i imagine something like a black dot (or red cross) means not tugged, green dot (or green tick)means tugged and working, positioned just next to where the mask drops from. This way a pax may know if they need to tug harder or even move on to another mask since passing out isnt a great way of finding out. maybe just a physical click, if there isnt one already, would help.

im very aware of upsetting people or saying the wrong thing in pprune, let me know if u dont like what ive said ill delete/edit no problem

[helimutt]

Glamgirl said

The oxygen usually lasts 12-15 mins, so we need to get on the ground asap. It's procedure.

It's procedure to get below 10,000' anyway. You can breath ok at that level. As for getting on the ground, possibly mid atlantic? asap may be a couple hours.

[bunkrest]

Theron

Very good point. There is actually a flow indicator for each Passenger mask located on the tubing (not something that is ever covered in the briefing) if memory serves me it turns green when O2 is flowing and remains clear when not.

[luvly jubbly]

In my QRH it clearly states to communicate straight after donning the masks... I never realised that this meant to the Passengers!! But thanks for clearing that up, explorer bloke!

Seriously though, when one of our aircraft had the rubber jungle come down, many passengers put them on their ears! People do not listen to safety briefs.

No pilot will do a PA when he should be saving the aircraft, so for the benefit of any stupid passengers expecting a running commentary of the ongoing emergency.........YOU WON'T HEAR FROM ANY CREW UNTIL A SAFE, BREATHABLE ALTITUDE!

PS. BBC DOUBLE STANDARDS.... The Ryanair crew did things exactly by the book. Please stop trying to make them look inept. They did a great job. When it was BA, you were full of praise for the crew.

[Parsnip]

Hang on a minute, PEN HADOW now what sort of a name is that, sounds a bit to me like Bear Grylls (he's really called Derek), anyway this Pen character is according to his peers the most adventurous polar explorers of present times, and he's trekked all the way to the North Pole and everywhere else South, without oxygen, kentucky fried chicken, and wearing nowt more than a pair of wooly pants his mam knitted him.
And now he's in an emergency situation,(which lets be honest it was) he panics the whole of the flying public of the UK with stories of reckless plummets and oxygen masks that don't work
Sounds like a bit of free telly publicity to me, maybe he's looking for sponsors for the Great North Run

[Irishtjs]

HHHHmmmm...

I wonder how it would have been reported if the livery had 'British' written on it.......

[luoto]

I've seen a few mentions of different air flows when the rubber jungle emerges. What is the flow ? I use supplemental o2 at night for example and that is at 2l/min and certainly that's no woosh (less of a woosh compared to the CPAP equipment used previously) and at 1.5 l/m it is even less noticeable you have to check is it on sometimes .

[Mike Read]

I have had two decompression incidents. One as slf and one as a pilot. Both were on BAC 1-11s and that series of a/c was not permitted to fly above FL350 as it didn't have drop out masks for the pax. If my memory is correct we carried 17 masks for 99 pax.

The first occasion happened at TOD so we descended rapidly to 8000ft or so and then landed at LHR normally. Some pax were a little breathless for a while but there were no problems and the cabin crew did a good job of reassurance and nobody suffered.

The second time, having departed MAN we had just reached TOC near Woodley when both air systems failed. I could see LHR on our left so we declared an emergency when well in the descent and were aware of a white faced chief steward with his portable oxygen on standing behind us in the flight deck waiting for instructions. (That couldn't happen now!) We met the cabin going up at about FL220. Again, no problem really. A quick a/c change and continued with the journey. And of course nothing appeared in the media for either event.

I suspect that in yesterday's incident if the punters had put their masks on even if they were not aware of O2 flowing they were working. How many died of anoxia?

[TARTAN]

Pax Oxygen

Just to clarify one point. It has been stated that airliners no longer use
oxygen bottles. This is not quite correct. Our a/c which are 737-200's
do still use the bottles rather than the oxy generators. Maybe it is a
technical point but thought that I would mention it.

[carbis22]

747,

natural parent reaction,
how quick was rapid decent, seconds, minutes??
16 that we know of rushed to hospital??