travelinmanS

hkskyline

Regarding the HKG-DLC incident on CA, this article notes passengers saying oxygen didn't flow out of the masks and they couldn't 'taste' oxygen coming through. But I thought the bag doesn't have to inflate in order for oxygen to flow?

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...00-feet-reveal

moondog

The fact that they remained conscious throughout the descent doesn't necessarily prove that the masks worked, but does weaken their case. What does oxygen taste like?

seanpodge

Whether the oxygen flowed or not, the plane should have either stayed below 10,000 ft or, much better, landed. The fact that the pilots chose to return to cruise altitude after deploying oxygen masks was a potentially lethal safety breach by the pilots. If after returning to cruise altitude there had been a genuine depressurisation event, the emergency oxygen supply for passengers would have already been exhausted after the first deployment, almost certainly resulting in all passengers dying within seconds. Presumably the pilots continued to DLC to try to cover their own a*ses. Good to see the CAAC take strong action against them and CA.

To CA's credit, they did promise to/actually fire the pilots before the CAAC ruling, but that was never going to be enough. Hopefully this CAAC ruling is a real wake up call not only to CA but other mainland airlines to fix their issues with pilots smoking in the cockpit.

exwannabe

Once you get out of the developed world, the definition of "banned" is very blury and often has little to do with laws as written.

kaka