Friday 29 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 28): The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has issued a safety recommendation to AirAsia Indonesia, calling for the airline to review its passenger safety briefing material to ensure instructions on how to activate passenger oxygen masks are clear and effective.

In a statement yesterday, ATSB said the recommendation follows an ATSB investigation into a pressurisation event on board one of the airline's Airbus A320 aircraft about 30 minutes after departure from Perth on a scheduled passenger flight to Bali on Oct 15, 2017.

ATSB said that during the aircraft's climb, "the crew initiated an emergency descent to 10,000 feet in response to a master caution warning of a malfunction of the aircraft's pressurisation system".

"The captain made a passenger announcement for the emergency descent and manually deployed the passenger oxygen masks. During the emergency descent, some oxygen masks did not deploy or passengers felt they were not receiving oxygen. Consequently, some passengers then moved around the cabin to find a functioning oxygen mask unit. Passengers later surveyed by the ATSB recalled that the cabin crew shouted commands such as 'BRACE', 'GET DOWN' and 'CRASH POSITION', increasing their level of confusion and panic.

"After reaching 10,000 feet, the flight crew announced the aircraft was at a safe altitude for oxygen masks to be removed. The aircraft landed safety at Perth Airport, with no injuries to passengers and crew, and no damage to the aircraft," ATSB said.

According to ATSB, its subsequent investigation into the incident found that AirAsia Indonesia's pre-flight safety briefing and safety information card did not include clear instructions on how to activate the flow of oxygen from the passenger oxygen masks, and that the bag may not inflate when oxygen is flowing. This may have resulted in some passengers not understanding whether or not there was oxygen flowing in the mask, it said.

ATSB said AirAsia Indonesia's cabin crew provided additional commands to passengers that were inappropriate for a depressurisation, which had the potential to increase confusion during the flight.

In the statement, ATSB transport safety director Dr Stuart Godley said that in an emergency, cabin crew are required to perform a safety leadership role for passengers.

"This incident highlights that an important aspect of managing abnormal passenger responses is the cabin crew's ability to recall and use appropriate standard commands," Godley said.

ATSB said it found the intermittent pressurisation system faults that led to the emergency descent were likely due to an intermittent incorrect calculation of cabin pressure by one of the aircraft's two independent cabin pressure controllers (CPCs). During the incident, the affected CPC provided 12 intermittent fault messages before the crew began the emergency descent, ATSB said.

Meanwhile, aviation news website Simple Flying reported that AirAsia told ATSB that it was adhering to Indonesian regulations and that it would "consider" including the requirements in its safety demonstration announcements.

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