[article] Ryanair flight crew's response to take-off incident criticised

Tabnabs

NINE OXYGEN masks failed to deploy and cabin crew were reduced to banging on the cockpit door to alert the pilot during a serious incident on a Ryanair flight in September 2008, an air accident investigation has found.

Anxious cabin crew used ID cards in a vain effort to prise open the units where masks which had not come down were stored, according to the report of the Air Accident Investigation Unit.

The report criticises the flight crew for electing to continue climbing and pressurising the cabin when the nature of a problem arising from a bump heard during take-off was not known.

A sudden loss of cabin pressure was triggered when the flight crew carried out checks after the tail of the aircraft hit the runway during take-off. Doing this without fully appreciating the consequences was a contributory cause of the incident, the report states.

Ryanair, which has accepted the findings, has already made changes to its training procedures in response to the incident. It said the report showed that the tail-strike was a “minor scrape” and said the aircraft returned to Dublin as a precautionary measure.

Six crew and 148 passengers were on the flight, which left Dublin for London Stansted on September 11th, 2008. At take-off, the flight crew were aware of a bump but were not sure what had happened. Over four minutes passed before the cabin crew confirmed that a tail-strike had occurred.

As part of the checklist to be followed for such events, the pressurisation outflow valve was opened, thus causing the cabin to depressurise. Environmental conditions in the cabin then rapidly deteriorated, the report states, and the cabin supervisor tried unsuccessfully to raise the flight crew on the interphone.

“I ran to the front. I needed to inform the captain that we were having a rapid recompression. When I reached the front of the cabin I saw No 4 trying to drop masks from our jumpseat, it didn’t work. She was feeling very weak, she needed oxygen,” she told the investigation.

When the supervisor failed to reach the captain by phone, she banged on the door and established communication. After this, the passenger oxygen system was deployed manually but some masks did not deploy. “The passengers in the row in front of me did not have masks on and were striking the overhead cabinets with their fists to try and get them to open,” one passenger told the investigation. Other passengers helped them to move to spare seats where the masks had deployed.

The aircraft landed safely after 21 minutes in the air and one passenger received medical assistance.

The report says that while the tail-strike was not serious, what followed caused a serious incident which upset many passengers.

source

Sounds like bad training and poor maintenance?

Barname

not really, priority is to FLY the plane

pressurisation is not critical at low levels

AfterDusk

If you read the AAIU report it says why the oxygen masks didn't automatically deploy. There was no need for them to as they were >FL140

donkey balls

Sounds like bad training and poor maintenance?

ANC aviate navigate communicate thats what your thought from the moment you learn to fly.
as for loss of pressurisation at such a low FL it would have no effect on the pax trying to breath only if your over 12,000ft think of altitude sickness.

John_Mc

Why are you suggesting poor maintenance and training? Have you read the report?

electric69

Dyflin wrote: »

Sounds like bad training and poor maintenance?

What part of that sounds like bad training and poor maintenance exactly? sounds like they were completly professional and that nobody was ever in any danger as the flight wasnt above 12,000 ft? oxygen masks werent needed at all.

donkey balls

electric69 wrote: »

What part of that sounds like bad training and poor maintenance exactly? sounds like they were completly professional and that nobody was ever in any danger as the flight wasnt above 12,000 ft? oxygen masks werent needed at all.

it sounds to me that the op doesent work within the aviation industry and his comments are what you would see on any red top newspaper.
i remember there was an incident about twelve years ago with something similar the acft it was then reported in a red top paper that the flt crew did not speak english.(for those of you that dont know English is the first langauge in aviation)

electric69

donkey balls wrote: »

that the flt crew did not speak english.(for those of you that dont know English is the first langauge in aviation)

The last time i was on a Ryanair flight i couldnt understand a word the twinkie was saying and i was sitting in the front row :pac:

Foggy43

From the AAIU report, any blame is pointed at the captain for....

4. The Flight Crew elected to continue to climb when the nature of the problem was not known.
5. The Commander did not descend to a lower altitude (which would have de-pressurised the cabin as per normal operation) prior to actioning the Tailstrike NNC.
6. The Tailstrike NNC was actioned incorrectly in that the aircraft was pressurised during the actioning of this checklist.
7. The opening of the outflow valve as required by the NNC checklist resulted in the depressurisation of the aircraft, resulting in the activation the ‘Cabin Alt Warning Horn’ and requiring another NNC checklist with recall items to be completed.

Just a little too high to dump pressure.

By now Ryanair Training will have corrected their training policy to prevent this happening again.

Any of you work aircraft when smoking was allowed? Bet you will never forget cleaning the outflow door/doors. Just think some peoples lungs are just like that.

diverdriver

Sounds like bad training and poor maintenance?

Have a look at the actual AAIU report. Neither applies. A couple of mistakes were made and the flight crew did continue to climb when they should have levelled out immediately. They also depressurised the aircraft 'without fully appreciating the consequences of such action', as the report puts it. But then again they were a little busy flying the aircraft. Informing the cabin crew of a situation that was not life threatening would be low on their checklist priorites.

The depressurisation scared the cabin crew but because of the low altitude the masks didn't deploy. Reading between the lines this apparently scared them quite a lot, panic even? Naturally as they would have been quite unaware of just what altitude they were at.

With the exception of the CSS, the Cabin Crew did not deal effectively with the unexpected loss of Cabin pressurisation.

They failed to follow their training.

She was feeling very weak, she needed oxygen,” she told the investigation.

She didn't need oxygen but was probably hyperventilating.

Then there was the further issue of several masks not deploying but which later deployed on the ground when the switch was activated again. That's a puzzle but could not be attributed to poor maintenance.

Poor training? No just the usual human factors combining to scare people on board. I would have a been scared if I'd been on board.



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Stovepipe

Hi there,
the fact that some of the oxygen masks stuck up is quite common, across all airlines.If you have nearly 200 in a 737-800, then some are going to stick, regardless.They are a severe pain in the arse to pack in situ.As for the CCM who tried to use a cash card to pry one open, where did she get that from? I bet it was an unofficial tip she was given, in the event of a failed deployment.
regards
Stovepipe

Dacian

Stovepipe wrote: »

Hi there,
the fact that some of the oxygen masks stuck up is quite common, across all airlines.If you have nearly 200 in a 737-800, then some are going to stick, regardless.They are a severe pain in the arse to pack in situ.As for the CCM who tried to use a cash card to pry one open, where did she get that from? I bet it was an unofficial tip she was given, in the event of a failed deployment.
regards
Stovepipe

Do they not have any equipment to open them in this event? Something a bit more official than an plastic card?

I always thought that the masks stretched so you had a chance of grabbing one from a row behind or in front of you.

Zyox

Stovepipe wrote: »

Hi there,
the fact that some of the oxygen masks stuck up is quite common, across all airlines.If you have nearly 200 in a 737-800, then some are going to stick, regardless.They are a severe pain in the arse to pack in situ.As for the CCM who tried to use a cash card to pry one open, where did she get that from? I bet it was an unofficial tip she was given, in the event of a failed deployment.
regards
Stovepipe

On 737-800 if those panels for the masks don't drop down there's a little hole where you can insert a pen or hair pin to make them manually release. All I can think is she was trying to get the edge of it against that little hole to open it, doubt prying with a plastic card would work.

Irishdudedave

In our training (Ryanair Cabin Crew) we are told that if oxygen masks above passenger seats do not drop they can be opened manually with a hair pin through the small hole. Oxygen masks in galleys,over jumpseats and in toilets can be manually released by swiping it with a card... We were informed in training that the one card you would always have near you would be your ID card so this would be best to use.

BrianD

Out of curiosity, how high did the aircraft get to before descending?

In fairness to Ryanair, whatever you may say about thm you can't criticise them on their safety of maintinance record.

Zyox

BrianD wrote: »

Out of curiosity, how high did the aircraft get to before descending?

In fairness to Ryanair, whatever you may say about thm you can't criticise them on their safety of maintinance record.

12,000 ft

http://avherald.com/h?article=4242e490&opt=0