Air Asia flight to Bali turns back after losing cabin pressure.

[Vanhelsing]

Air Asia have had a spate of incidents recently on flights arriving in or departing from Australia and one hopes these incidents remain relatively minor. The continuing issues the airline is having will hopefully prompt Australia's Civil Aviation Authority to monitor Air Asia a little more closely. It must also be affecting sales somewhat as I know of people who now won't fly Air Asia to Bali due to their recent problems.

I hope I never live to hear "Brace" on a flight.

An Air Asia flight from Perth to Bali has been forced to turn back after a technical issue caused the cabin to lose pressure.

Flight QZ535 from Perth to Denpasar was forced to turn back to Perth Airport, just 25 minutes into its flight this morning.

Oxygen masks fell from the cabin and passengers were told by the crew to get into the brace position.

http://www.9news.com.au/national/20...o-turn-back-after-terrifying-midair-emergency

 

[William King]

Yikes

 

[Puspawarna]

More yikes.

I may have told this story before, but a friend once told me the tale of hearing a weird noise on a Garuda flight (which had been late taking off due to an unspecified mechanical problem that had supposedly been fixed).

Shortly thereafter, the pilot said over the intercom, "Problem with plane. Tell you more later."

It then got very hot on board, but they landed safely. Turns out the culprit behind all the disruption was the air conditioning system, so there was really never any danger. But the pilot's announcement probably took several years off the lives of anyone on the flight with heart trouble.

 

[Vanhelsing]

Shortly thereafter, the pilot said over the intercom, "Problem with plane. Tell you more later."

Pilot training on what to say in times of emergency may be lacking somewhat within the region. The recent continual shuddering of an Air Asia flight from KL to Perth had a pilot advising his passengers to simply pray.

 

[dafluff]

Same story but with a lot more sensationalism:

http://www.smh.com.au/business/avia...-terrifying-midair-drama-20171015-gz1glh.html

Note on sensationalism: the airplane didn't "plunge to 10,000 ft". The pilots executed a controlled rapid descent to where the air is breathable. This is the correct procedure when experiencing loss of cabin pressure, so good job pilots.

There won't be any announcements, because there is no time (time of useful consciousness at above 30,000 ft is about 1 to 3 minutes). Plus the pilots are busy.

 

[Puspawarna]

Same story but with a lot more sensationalism:

http://www.smh.com.au/business/avia...-terrifying-midair-drama-20171015-gz1glh.html

I like the way the terrified passengers still had the presence of mind to take goofy selfies.

Something similar happened to my husband on an Air China flight once. They lost cabin pressure for a moment and so the oxygen masks deployed. The cabin pressure stabilized, but apparently the rule is that once your oxygen masks are deployed, you have to stay at a low enough altitude that you would not need them to be released again. (Or something like that ... our aviation experts on the board can clarify if I'm messing up the details.)

When the masks came down, lots of passengers put them on and took pictures of themselves wearing them. My husband says he thought about doing the same, but thought ... "what if there is something seriously wrong, and we crash, but my personal effects are returned to my wife - and she sees that the last known photo of me is goofing around in an oxygen mask just before the plane crashed?" He decided he didn't want to do that to me, and refrained from a selfie.

Anyway, because they then had to fly at 10,000 feet, and they were flying over the Mongolian desert, I guess the view for the rest of the flight was absolutely breathtaking.

 

[Davita]

Dafluff is correct that the reporting creates some sensationalism and he correctly identified the pilots action's....normally there is no crew panic as suggested in the reporting.

In the event of a rapid depressurisation the procedure is to ensure the masks have automatically deployed...if not the non-pilot will manually deploy. The operating pilot will close the engine levers, deploy the speed brakes, and put the aircraft into as steep a descent as possible ensuring he has awareness of the proximity of terrain (mountains). The non-operating pilot will don his O2 mask and take control to allow the operating pilot to don his...they then ensure communication with ATC as to their intent.....on a Mayday call.

To answer Puspi...once the pax masks are released it requires a pull on the tube to release O2 and thereafter it will only last about 15 mins. That's why, even if the problem is fixed, it isn't procedure to climb above 10,000 feet as all the O2 will have been used up. The pilots have a different system to the passengers and there are portable bottles in the overhead lockers for the cabin crew..
I'm not familiar with the type of Air Asia's aircraft but the B747 I was on for over 10 years had an automatic announcement system to advise passengers in case of rapid depressurisation.

It is a well-practiced procedure and I wouldn't mind getting a few bucks for every time I've done it in a flight simulator...but never in a real aircraft.

 

[Anglian]

It’s reported that the MAS flight that went missing depressurised, but never descended, so within a few minutes you become unconscious and then sadly die, I’ve only known the rubber jungle deploy once, it didn’t make the news, pain in the arse restoring the masks, but on aCAA test flight the masks are deployed, sometimes the little buggers stay in the box, so hope you aren’t sitting in that seat

 

[snpark]

Of course the best announcements are the ones when the stewardess accidentally spills hot coffee on the pilot just as he starts to talk "ladies and gentlemen, aaaarrrggghhhh what the f..k"

 

[snpark]

Ironically the story was just on CNN now - I would take umbrage at why the story leads as "Bali bound Airasia flight" - why not "flight from Perth" - it's almost like they don't want to associate Australia with this and "blame" the poor Asian country - ok yes it is an Asian airline but the destination is irrelevant really unless its to let family and friends know, and since the plane had long landed before it got on to TV news, it seems petty and pointless to me to just say "Bali bound flight" like as if in some way it is Bali's fault?? If the flight originated from Perth, it is Perth who would have done all the pre flight ground checks etc, right? So any mechanical blame, whilst still being Airasia, would be from the Perth airport ground crew side? Just intrigued why they can't just say Airasia flight from Perth