An Ethiopian Airlines B787 Dreamliner enroute to Mumbai India was forced to make an emergency after a cabin depressurization. The flight was on its journey from Addis Ababa in Ethiopia to Mumbai when the incident occurred.
Reports showed that the incident was on flight ET640, operated by a Boeing 787 Dreamliner with the registration ET-AXS, and it occurred when the aircraft was cruising at 33,000 feet over the Arabian Sea.
After the depressurization warning went off, the plane’s crew was forced to execute a rapid descent. The incident resulted in 7 people getting sick. They were treated with decompression-related symptoms, out of which one required hospitalization, reports stated.
According to data from flight tracking platform Flightradar24, the plane landed in Mumbai at around 1:42 local time.
Cabin depressurization explained:
Cabin depressurization in a passenger plane usually occurs when the air pressure inside the cabin drops below the normal level. This is mainly attributed to a structural malfunction or a problem with the pressurization system.
This can depressurization lead to hypoxia which is also known as oxygen deficiency and other medical issues for passengers and crew. In such events, oxygen masks automatically drop, and pilots initiate an emergency descent to a lower altitude where the air is more breathable.
“As the aircraft climbs, the cabin pressure will eventually settle to about 8,000 feet. So if you’re flying at 35,000 feet, the cabin will feel like you’re at 8,000 feet of altitude,” Graham Braithwaite, a professor of aviation safety and accident investigation at Cranfield University in the UK told the CNN in a related interview.
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“If there’s been a very sudden depressurization, the crew will also try to weigh up whether the aircraft is structurally damaged, versus how quickly they can descend. If they descend too rapidly, they might be putting that aircraft under a lot more stress.”
