Ryanair Depressurisation

smurfjed

This happened to an American based B737 years ago, the flight crew knew that they had a decompression but had no idea that they had lost the top of the fuselage, just imagine what would have happened if they held while they were discussing hotel options, the same could be said for Swissair 111.

In an event like this, I would much prefer an airport that I was familiar with, rather than try to seek information on surrounding airports, unless of course i was on fire, then any lump of tarmac with a fire service would do.

FrancieBrady

devnull wrote: »

I've just had a look through the thread and nobody has used the words 'routine' or 'fairly common' to describe the incident so I'm unsure why you are asking me to answer a question about something that was never described as such?

How many airports are there in Europe? Huge numbers, do you think that every single airport can have large numbers of fire crews, ambulances, special services, to cover every possible kind of emergency or problem that could happen with a plane or at an airport 24x7x365?

Every airport will have a certain level of presence for these situations at all times, but the idea that you'll have huge amounts of staff sitting around on the off-chance that they might be needed isn't really something I can see happening in the same way you don't see huge numbers of police/ambulance hanging around all day at every sporting event or train station in the off chance there might be trouble or an accident.

I don't see any issue with how the Pilots, Rescue and Ground crew coped with this.
There are though clearly complaints about how Ryanair dealt with it. And there are those here dismissing those claims as unreasonable.

Just some of the posts saying these types of incidents happen. If they happen is it unreasonable to ask that procedures be in place to handle the consequences fully to everyone's satisfaction?
I take on board fully that the pilots etc did what they had to do adequately and professionally.

These things happen when you have 435 aircraft in the air every day

These things happen.

Every day across the world airlines have incidents like this,

Seen and heard of plenty decompressions before

No it's a reality, every day dozens of flights experience tech issues, be it depresurizarion, engine difficulty, landing gear or things Joe public would never know about.

IE 222

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Which is fair enough. But I think we routinely see a gallop to the defence on here for the airlines.

If this is a 'normal enough' occurrence, then surely properly looking after affected passengers should be normal procedure too.

You've paid for a flight to get you somewhere. Is it not perfectly legitimate to have a complaint if you don't get there and are dumped at a remote airport and left to your own devices.
These events might be normal for airlines and pilots, they aren't for pax.

Life or death situation.

Remote airport or remote mountain.

Hypoxia kicks in within a minute, there is only enough oxygen to get the plane to a safe flight level. Look up Helios flight 522 and what the outcome can be if crews don't react extremely quickly in these situations.

Crew wouldn't of known the extent of damage at the time of the incident, they could of had a gapping big hole in the frame for all they knew. The type of incident requires a rapid descent within seconds of happening. Injuries where a result of the descent, not the incident, which doesn't always lead to injuries. By the time cabin crew would of reported injuries (unlikely they would of had time to do an official count and full diagnoses of injuries) the flight crew would of chosen an airport and been preparing to land.

The plane dropped 29000ft in 10 mins, do you want pilots focusing on the job at hand during this time or debating if another airport might have better facilities.

FrancieBrady

IE 222 wrote: »

Life or death situation.

Remote airport or remote mountain.

Hypoxia kicks in within a minute, there is only enough oxygen to get the plane to a safe flight level. Look up Helios flight 522 and what the outcome can be if crews don't react extremely quickly in these situations.

Crew wouldn't of known the extent of damage at the time of the incident, they could of had a gapping big hole in the frame for all they knew. The type of incident requires a rapid descent within seconds of happening. Injuries where a result of the descent, not the incident, which doesn't always lead to injuries. By the time cabin crew would of reported injuries (unlikely they would of had time to do an official count and full diagnoses of injuries) the flight crew would of chosen an airport and been preparing to land.

The plane dropped 29000ft in 10 mins, do you want pilots focusing on the job at hand during this time or debating if another airport might have better facilities.

I don't have a problem with how the pilots handled the situation.

I have a problem with people, on the one hand saying 'these things happen' and then complaining that people would have criticisms of an airline for not having logistics in place to handle 'these things that happen'.

In other words the routine jump on this forum by some to always defend the airline and dismiss/demean (by claiming they don't know what they are talking about) those who have a criticism.

We know nobody died, pilots and those in the airline industry are not gonna die either just because somebody has a consumer issue with them. :rolleyes:

IE 222

FrancieBrady wrote: »

I don't see any issue with how the Pilots, Rescue and Ground crew coped with this.
There are though clearly complaints about how Ryanair dealt with it. And there are those here dismissing those claims as unreasonable.
.

I'm not sure what Ryanairs operations are at Hahn but it's unlikely their 24hrs. Do you expect every airline to have a team of staff available 24hrs at every airport even when operations have ceased for the day.

Mebuntu

This incident highlights yet again the inadequacy of the pre-flight safety announcement on all airlines regarding loss of cabin pressure. The deployment of the masks and how to put them on is covered but the emergency descent is not mentioned at all.

When the masks drop it is, inevitably, a frightening experience but, at least, the passengers will have been warned in advance. If it happens, your mind would automatically be 100% fixed on putting on the mask and ensuring if you have children that their masks go on properly. What you haven't been told in advance is that the aircraft will have to immediately commence a rapid descent so it is no surprise to hear that some passengers thought the end was nigh when the "dive" occurred. If they had been informed in advance they would know that this rapid descent is just normal procedure being followed.

I have never heard any useful explanation why this is so.

plodder

Obviously, the captain isn't going to be reasoning ways for Ryanair to save money while making an emergency descent. Other people have done that (maybe) and he just has a list of preferred airfields to divert to. This isn't the South Pacific. There are more airfields in Central Europe than you can shake a stick at. People seem to be assuming that Hahn was the closest.

Squatter

IE 222 wrote: »

I'm not sure what Ryanairs operations are at Hahn but it's unlikely their 24hrs. Do you expect every airline to have a team of staff available 24hrs at every airport even when operations have ceased for the day.

Obviously he does. And he probably expects Ryanair fares to remain low too!

But funniest of all is his opinion that in an emergency landing situation "procedures [should] be in place to handle the consequences fully to everyone's satisfaction!" :eek: So perhaps Michael O'Leary should simply issue every Ryanair pilot with a magic wand.

I can't wait to listen to Liveline tomorrow. Should be a classic, with every gobdaw in Ireland with an anti-Ryanair chip on the shoulder calling in!

FrancieBrady

IE 222 wrote: »

I'm not sure what Ryanairs operations are at Hahn but it's unlikely their 24hrs. Do you expect every airline to have a team of staff available 24hrs at every airport even when operations have ceased for the day.

Not their own staff, no. But I have been in airports where Ryanair functions have been handled by somebody else contracted to do it.

Is it really beyond the wit of European airports (and the airlines using them) to come up with standardised and acceptable procedures to deal with these 'everyday occurrences'?
I.E. Look at models elsewhere, i.e. the Law Society will sort out/indemnify for issues arising from negligence, failure in duty etc bysolicitors and barristers.
How?
By charging it to all solicitors barristers and by having a 'law society' to deal with everyday occurences in the first place.

devnull

Mebuntu wrote: »

I have never heard any useful explanation why this is so.

I would suggest that telling people something that sounds so terrifying as that would cause more panic than anything every time a plane started descending at a fairly decent speed as to why the oxygen masks are not opening up and things like that. Even if you tell the people in this circumstance they can do nothing about it since it has to happen.

Best them get the masks on first and then panic about the descent than allow the panic about the descent to distract them about that.

FrancieBrady

Squatter wrote: »

Obviously he does. And he probably expects Ryanair fares to remain low too!

But funniest of all is his opinion that in an emergency landing situation "procedures [should] be in place to handle the consequences fully to everyone's satisfaction!" :eek: So perhaps Michael O'Leary should simply issue every Ryanair pilot with a magic wand.

I can't wait to listen to Liveline tomorrow. Should be a classic, with every gobdaw in Ireland with an anti-Ryanair chip on the shoulder calling in!

Is this kind of haughty reply really necessary?
I have no particular axe to grind with Ryanair.
This is the 'typical' way you guys leap to the defence though. Demean and dismiss. :rolleyes:

Mrcaramelchoc

FrancieBrady wrote: »

I don't have a problem with how the pilots handled the situation.

I have a problem with people, on the one hand saying 'these things happen' and then complaining that people would have criticisms of an airline for not having logistics in place to handle 'these things that happen'.

In other words the routine jump on this forum by some to always defend the airline and dismiss/demean (by claiming they don't know what they are talking about) those who have a criticism.

We know nobody died, pilots and those in the airline industry are not gonna die either just because somebody has a consumer issue with them. :rolleyes:

this is the prevalent theme running through this thread.there are aviation heads in this forum that will defend the airline, airplane and the air crew to the death.not one of them in here have sympathised with what the passengers had to go through and it probably wont happen either.
yes the pilots did a great job yes the crew did one as well but the airline were piss poor in dealing with the aftermath.

Mebuntu

devnull wrote: »

I would suggest that telling people something that sounds so terrifying as that would cause more panic

I'd say it is more terrifying to not know and be terrified than to know and be terrified

devnull

Mrcaramelchoc wrote: »

this is the prevalent theme running through this thread.there are aviation heads in this forum that will defend the airline, airplane and the air crew to the death.not one of them in here have sympathised with what the passengers had to go through and it probably wont happen either.
yes the pilots did a great job yes the crew did one as well but the airline were piss poor in dealing with the aftermath.

If it was a diversion for a non emergency or non safety reason then I'd agree with you completely, since they would have had time to arrange these things and make choices where they could think about the bigger picture, certainly.

But in this situation it is the job of the Captain and the First Officer to get the plane down as safely and quickly as possible since they cannot take chances on how serious the defect or problem on the airplane is.

Throughout aviation history, pilots who allowed themselves to be distracted by other factors rather than simply landing the plane as soon as possible in these situations, have put their passengers in danger, sometimes with fatal consequences.

Far better to land as soon as possible and leave people stranded in an airport for some hours than spending another 5-10 minutes talking about what you will do with them and taking a risk the situation gets worse which may put at risk any kind of safe landing.

Fattes

Mrcaramelchoc wrote: »

this is the prevalent theme running through this thread.there are aviation heads in this forum that will defend the airline, airplane and the air crew to the death.not one of them in here have sympathised with what the passengers had to go through and it probably wont happen either.
yes the pilots did a great job yes the crew did one as well but the airline were piss poor in dealing with the aftermath.

How do you think the airline was piss poor

A flight was laid on the next morning for those passengers that could fly

The remaining pasangers that could not or would not fly have arrived in Zadar bye bus today provided bye the airline ( 13 hour bus trip)

The issues of lack of available accommodation, outside of the airlines control, airline authorised accommodation expenditure

Lack of facilities or food services in the airport or surrounding area at midnight not the airlines fault? Try getting something to eat in Dublin airport terminals at midnight

So what is you exact is the piss poor thing you think the airline did?

Of course people fee sorry for the passengers and nobody wants to be in that situation.
But being realistic and practical there is a limit to what airlines can do.

I have a challenge for you at midnight tonight ring around knock and see if you can arrange food and accommodation for 160 people and ambulances and medical treatment for another 30! Let us know how you get on

Squatter

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Is this kind of haughty reply really necessary?

To a post that demanded that in an emergency landing situation "procedures [should] be in place to handle the consequences fully to everyone's satisfaction!" I'm afraid that the answer is a categorical YES!

FrancieBrady wrote: »

This is the 'typical' way you guys leap to the defence though. Demean and dismiss. :rolleyes:

You mean highlight the absurdity of your post? It's rather hard not to resist the temptation, when you come out with such unreasonable balderdash!

Incidentally, for the record, far from being a Ryanair defender, I am one of the very few people in Ireland to have won a small claims court case against the company! And they paid up - 2 years later! I'm very proud of that.

(They also changed their terms and conditions after my win, so it couldn't happen again!)

FrancieBrady

Squatter wrote: »

To a post that demanded that in an emergency landing situation "procedures [should] be in place to handle the consequences fully to everyone's satisfaction!" I'm afraid that the answer is a categorical YES!

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't it the goal of every decent corporation/company to handle complaints and situations 'to everyone's satisfaction?

Surely you could work out that meant to everyone's 'reasonable' satisfaction? :rolleyes:

You mean highlight the absurdity of your post? It's rather hard not to resist the temptation, when you come out with such unreasonable balderdash!

Incidentally, for the record, far from being a Ryanair defender, I am one of the very few people in Ireland to have won a small claims court case against the company! And they paid up - 2 years later! I'm very proud of that.

(They also changed their terms and conditions after my win, so it couldn't happen again!)

Did the judge dismiss your case as trite, or meaningless because he knew more about it?

Complaints are good things in terms of improving services as you took the liberty to do yourself.
But anybody else is just a crank or a 'complaining gobdaw'?

I am sure you didn't intend to make yourself look hypocritical but you did.

IE 222

FrancieBrady wrote: »

I don't have a problem with how the pilots handled the situation.

I have a problem with people, on the one hand saying 'these things happen' and then complaining that people would have criticisms of an airline for not having logistics in place to handle 'these things that happen'.

In other words the routine jump on this forum by some to always defend the airline and dismiss/demean (by claiming they don't know what they are talking about) those who have a criticism.

We know nobody died, pilots and those in the airline industry are not gonna die either just because somebody has a consumer issue with them. :rolleyes:

Were talking 1 diversion/emergency landing a day around the world. Do you realise how many flights take off each day and how many airports there is. If this happened earlier in the day it would of been dealt with easier.

IE 222

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Not their own staff, no. But I have been in airports where Ryanair functions have been handled by somebody else contracted to do it.

Is it really beyond the wit of European airports (and the airlines using them) to come up with standardised and acceptable procedures to deal with these 'everyday occurrences'?
I.E. Look at models elsewhere, i.e. the Law Society will sort out/indemnify for issues arising from negligence, failure in duty etc bysolicitors and barristers.
How?
By charging it to all solicitors barristers and by having a 'law society' to deal with everyday occurences in the first place.

Yeah but rememeber this happened when the airport was pretty much finished for the night with minimal workers to keep the airport open for small scale ops.

How long would it take the Law Society to process and complete that work. I'm guessing more than 12 hours or so.

People have gotten too clueless and too use to having everything done for them these days that they can't look after themselves and need to blame someone else instead of helping themselves. Look at the post someone posted blaming Ryanair about not been able to find the street a bus to the airport left from, they booked the flight and the bus not Ryanair. This is what your dealing with these days.

Dardania

Mebuntu wrote: »

devnull wrote: »

I would suggest that telling people something that sounds so terrifying as that would cause more panic

I'd say it is more terrifying to not know and be terrified than to know and be terrified

I'd say in response to the original point about not telling people in the safety announcement that the rapid descent is normal: you're competing for people's attention. 
You need them to put on the mask if it drops - that's the main thing. The value add of telling them that plane is going to descend, and that is normal, is not worth the "cost"that they might miss the important action they need to perform (putting on the mask). The fact they are terrified in the meantime, while unpleasant (if that goes far enough to cover terror) is not important as long as they're breathing O2.
You could also get into trying to explain the physics of the situation: how many people realise that the air is thinner at 37,000', and what that means to their breathing?

Also, bear in mind the likelihood of issues during cruise are low compared to take off or landing / you're better off spending your time on the more likely phase when issues will occur ( https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Percentage-of-fatal-accidents-by-flight-phase-Even-though-only-6-of-a-flight-is-spent_fig1_256462915 )

smurfjed

FrancieBrady, the service that you are seeking costs money, for example if an airline decides to use [font=Helvetica, sans-serif]Narsarsuaq in Greenland as an Atlantic diversion airport outside of normal hours, they will be charged $3000, so thats about $2 per passenger just to have the option to divert there. Are you willing to start paying a surcharge for each and every possible diversion airport along your cross Europe route?[/font]

FrancieBrady

smurfjed wrote: »

FrancieBrady, the service that you are seeking costs money, for example if an airline decides to use [font=Helvetica, sans-serif]Narsarsuaq in Greenland as an Atlantic diversion airport outside of normal hours, they will be charged $3000, so thats about $2 per passenger just to have the option to divert there. Are you willing to start paying a surcharge for each and every possible diversion airport along your cross Europe route?[/font]

That is an admission that they don't provide services.

I said earlier other professions.services manage it by pooling resources, I don't think it is necessarily a huge expense to have a number of staff members at an airport on cal on a rota basis who could mobilise when things like this happen. The fire service is run on this basis in rural and remote areas.

If the customer was truly king it would happen. But unfortunately flying has been slowly downgraded to shipping cattle over the years.

I think if the premium for this was spread across all tickets I would have no issue as it would probably be negligible and I would look on it as I would travel insurance.

Dardania

FrancieBrady wrote: »

smurfjed wrote: »

FrancieBrady, the service that you are seeking costs money, for example if an airline decides to use [font=Helvetica, sans-serif]Narsarsuaq in Greenland as an Atlantic diversion airport outside of normal hours, they will be charged $3000, so thats about $2 per passenger just to have the option to divert there. Are you willing to start paying a surcharge for each and every possible diversion airport along your cross Europe route?[/font]

That is an admission that they don't provide services.

I said earlier other professions.services manage it by pooling resources, I don't think it is necessarily a huge expense to have a number of staff members at an airport on cal on a rota basis who could mobilise when things like this happen. The fire service is run on this basis in rural and remote areas.

If the customer was truly king it would happen. But unfortunately flying has been slowly downgraded to shipping cattle over the years.

I think if the premium for this was spread across all tickets I would have no issue as it would probably be negligible and I would look on it as I would travel insurance.

The arguably more useful service in these situations is to have spare aircraft that can come in at short notice and continue you to your destination...  rather than looking after you for a prolonged stay on the ground

FrancieBrady

Dardania wrote: »

The arguably more useful service in these situations is to have spare aircraft that can come in at short notice and continue you to your destination...  rather than looking after you for a prolonged stay on the ground

Whatever the options are, there should be a procedure.

smurfjed

But from what people have written here, there was a procedure:
1: Aircraft diverted to a base station where a replacement aircraft or crews might be available or maintenance services to resolve the issue.
2: Airline approved payment for accommodation but due to location there wasn't any.
3: Airline supplied food vouchers.
4: Airline offered passengers the option of a replacement flight or bus transportation for anyone unable/unwilling to fly.
So where exactly did they go wrong?

billy few mates

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Whatever the options are, there should be a procedure.

If any other airline had been involved in this incident the result would have been exactly the same, there would have been practically no ground staff (if any at all) at that time of night and there still would have been a shortage of hotel rooms in the area. You can't expect an airline (any airline) to man every airport 24/7 in case of a diversion and still expect them to sell you a ticket for feck all...

FrancieBrady

billy few mates wrote: »

If any other airline had been involved in this incident the result would have been exactly the same, there would have been practically no ground staff (if any at all) at that time of night and there still would have been a shortage of hotel rooms in the area. You can't expect an airline (any airline) to man every airport 24/7 in case of a diversion and still expect them to sell you a ticket for feck all...

Yes, I quite agree, all airlines would behave the same. All the more reason they should pool resources and think of the customer.

I can expect other services to operate if needed 24 hours a day. The concept of 'staff on call rota's' isn't unique or rare.
You call them in and they deal with pax avoiding the discomfort of people who have paid you to get them somewhere.

I don't know the specific complaints here Smurfed, I was responding to the now rather tired 'leap' to defend by dismissing people as cranks and 'gobdaws'.
Airlines get away with throwing their hands in the air and saying, 'sure your ticket was cheap' far too frequently.

starvin

billy few mates wrote: »

If any other airline had been involved in this incident the result would have been exactly the same, there would have been practically no ground staff (if any at all) at that time of night and there still would have been a shortage of hotel rooms in the area. You can't expect an airline (any airline) to man every airport 24/7 in case of a diversion and still expect them to sell you a ticket for feck all...

Agree with Billy 100%. Any airline making an unexpected diversion into an airport that isn’t one of their main bases is chaotic to say the least. Do some of the posters on here expect the Captain to fly an aircraft with an undiagnosed, possibly catastrophic fault to fly any further than is absolutely necessary?

FrancieBrady

starvin wrote: »

Agree with Billy 100%. Any airline making an unexpected diversion into an airport that isn’t one of their main bases is chaotic to say the least. Do some of the posters on here expect the Captain to fly an aircraft with an undiagnosed, possibly catastrophic fault to fly any further than is absolutely necessary?

No, I don't. I don't have any issue with how the pilot handled it.

L1011

Various posts on this thread are massively below acceptable standards, it does seem to have calmed down a bit but any return to that will result in cards.