Decompression of 2444 LAX-DFW 2/26

[phllax]

My wife and I were scheduled to go to Dallas on the 1:55 pm flight. That was delayed 3+ hours. When we get to the airport, we try to go standby on the 1:15 flight, but it was over by 40, so they transfer the entire list to the 12:35 flight, which has been delayed to 2:35. Had we not made that, we were confirmed on the 3:25 flight.

All standby's for the delayed 12:35 flight are forced to gate check their bags, and only middle seats are available. We end up getting 23B and 24E, but we at least get a flight.

We get off the ground at 3pm PST and everything's fine for the first hour. Pilot tells us we're flying at 39,000 and has the seat belt sign off. All's fine for the first hour. Here's where the fun starts.

The captain turns on the seat belt sign, and the plane dips. I thought he was descending due to weather. Then the masks drop. Nobody screams. The pilot raises the spoilers and begins to descend the plane. He also does a series of tight S-turns to slow us down and help with the descent. My wife thought it was more steep than I did. My mask works fine. I was sitting next to a woman with a lap child, and I helped her try to secure the mask on the baby, but the baby kept trying to push it off. My wife's mask works fine, but she had her tray table down with a can and cup of soda and the paper out. The trash cart was around row 25 and my wife was able to see the F/A pushing the cart get some air.

One of the F/A's came on the PA and told people to remain seated and use the mask.

Eventually we leveled off, and the pilot comes on to tell us we no longer need the masks. He explains that the primary and secondary cabin pressurization systems failed, and that the manual backup was slow to catch up. He also explained that the O2 generators emit heat and there will be a smoky smell associated with them being activated and that was normal. The plane and cabin were under control, and we would be continuing onto DFW and would be arriving in about 50 minutes. He would come on an additional 3 times to explain everything. One of the F/A had been working 33 years and this was her first decompression.

Here's our flight log: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/A...4/h...2040Z/KLAX/KDFW

Although the flight log says we stopped at 26,000, I think we went all the way down to breathable air between 10,000 and 13,000.

People started to pull out their camera's and took pictures of the cabin and video. Cabin service was suspended, and the movie was stopped. We eventually landed and the cabin broke into applause.

Here's what really bothered us. When we get to the gate, there's nobody from AA to greet us and let us know special services were available to those that wanted or needed them.

 

[jimntx]

Here's what really bothered us. When we get to the gate, there's nobody from AA to greet us and let us know special services were available to those that wanted or needed them.

Bothered? Of course, but please don't tell me you were surprised unless this was your very first time to ever fly AA.

You will rarely, if ever, see anyone from AA meeting a "crippled" flight unless there was a VIP or celebrity on board, and there's a chance the media might be there. (Not because they want to get on tv...because they don't want it made public how little they care once they've gotten paid for your ticket.)

Cynical? Moi? How could you say such a hurtful thing?

 

[Mach85ER]

I don't know since I wasn't there, but whether or not a problem inflight rises to the severity of requiring special assistance on arrival is a very subjective thing. I would have thought the delay encountered would require extra CSM asistance at the gate rather than what I read from your post.

What happens in the cockpit and what is perceived at two middle seats in the back are usually two different things. As a pilot, I can tell you that your perception that turns were made to slow down and help the descent is wrong. Most likely they were made due to conflicting traffic or weather at lower altitudes. Even a 25 degree bank will look like a 90 degree bank in certain conditions.

Guessing at an altitude from the middle seats is another near impossible thing, even for me as a pilot in back. From what I read from your post, and what little I found out from another "source", my pure guess is the aircraft did stop at 26,000 feet after the pilots were able to control the pressurization of the aircraft and get the cabin altitude down below 10,000.

Although the masks did drop, they may have been dropped by the pilots just as a precaution before the cabin actually rose to a level where they actually would have been needed. The movies always portray this as a drastic near death experience, in actual practice it really isn't.

Hopefully the pilots and flight attendants reassured everyone with their professional conduct. i don't know if this case should have had personnel waiting for it. I've been in other mechanical problems where it didn't and stood outside answering questions. 75% were great, thanks for the ride they'd say. 20% were inquisitive, cordial and professional. 5% were total whiny $%^s that alternated between insults and requests for free vouchers for future FC flights, limos and dinners.

It's a tough call. Anybody showng up would be useless in explaining what happened which is what those in back would want the most. Giving out info that may be incorrect may do even more damage that could cause problems in todays "legal minded" society.

Hopefully the next flight is uneventful

 

[cltvff]

Thanks, Mach85ER.. very insightful post.

 

[Skymess]

Mach, nice explanation but I think as airline people we tend to be a little inured from the reality of what laymen are experiencing or thinking. Even if you are a trained flight attendant or pilot it is going to be out of your ordinary flight experience to have a decompression. Being on a flight where the masks drop and you have to put them on is not a common occurrence and I think someone should have been there to meet the flight. I have to agree with Jim that I am not surprised they weren't. Management always drops the ball in some way or another when you really need them.

 

[Mach85ER]

SM,

We're on the same page. By this time in our careers at AA, nearly every AA pilot/FA is fed up with AA failing to provide assistance in abnormal situations.

In the 1990's, we specifically asked for EMT's to meet our plane at the gate. One FA had heart palpitations with an ashen face and literally blue fingernails. Scared the @#$% out of me looking at her thinking her heart was going to stop before we landed (pre defib days)

I (FO) was specific as to the grave nature of the problem while on radio to DFW operations. The result at the gate? They sent a Flight Service Manager because it would have cost them $400 to call the EMT's on call.

It was pre-Rule 32 days. You would have loved the CA on the phone to the Ramp Manager screaming every expletive deletive in the book about trying to kill his FA so the Mgr could save a buck.

Not sure if it was a decompression or a failure to control cabin altitude. Decompression would be a rapid, noticeable ear popping at cruise altitude maybe even a bang and a lot of noise. Failure to control cabin altitude could be a constant 500 feet per minute climb in the altitude of the cabin while at cruise that doesn't respond to the pilots efforts to control it. Before becoming a serious problem (can't breathe) the pilots descend, rapidly as a precaution.

Always 3 different perceptions on any flight. The Pilots, the FA's and the Pax. As the customer, every effort should be made to put them at ease so they will by a ticket without thinking next time

 

[eolesen]

Lack of communication is a universal problem at AA, and hardly unique to management. At DFW, it's epic.

I'm sure Dispatch and MOC knew about the pressurization problems, but there's no guarantee the ops guys knew there was a problem, let alone a mask deployment.

And as a point of clarification for the finger pointers, I'm pretty certain the guys working the radios at DFW aren't management -- they're either agents or some other hourly classification...

As a former gate agent, the only time I knew for certain there was a problem onboard was if there were LEO's or paramedics waiting on the jetbridge when I went down to meet the aircraft, or if CFR escorted it to the gate...

 

[jimntx]

And, this is supposed to excuse their apparent lack of action/caring? E, no one is blaming the front line people, and if you were an agent for more than a month, you have my admiration and my sympathy.

However, AA management does not show their faces unless there is an opportunity for them to look good. And, I don't mean just upper management. Think how hard it has always been to get even a supervisor to the gate when a passenger is acting like a jerk.

Mach85ER, I, too, appreciate your explanation. However, the underlying derision toward the passengers is unforgivable. It is not their job to know what is going on or the proper procedures to follow in such situations.

It doesn't matter whether you call it a "failure to control cabin pressure" or a decompression, or a ham and cheese sandwich, the oxygen masks deployed and the passengers were instructed to put them on. That's all the passenger knows.

P.S. According to the FAA-approved Flight Attendant manual, your definition of a decompression is wrong, or at least, incomplete. From the manual: "A decompression can occur quickly due to a tear or hole in the fuselage, or slowly due to a malfunction of the pressurization system." (underlining mine.) Our manual only differentiates between rapid and slow decompression--not decompression and a "failure to control cabin pressure."

 

[eolesen]

Again, Jim, you are assuming that it was communicated to ops that masks were deployed, and/or that the ops agent bothered to pass that along to the ramp manager.

It's entirely possible (and IMHO quite likely) that nothing was communicated to the airport agents by either the crew or SOC. That's a breakdown in communications.


I'm in total agreement on the passenger perception of the issue, but the bigger problem at AA is that the left hand rarely knows what the right hand is doing.

There's no excuse for a supervisor not coming out to deal with an irate or a jerk, but how do you propose that they proactively react to a situation if they're not told that it happened in the first place?

I worked as an agent and redcoat for several years at ORD, JFK, and DFW. Being blindsided by things that happened onboard the aircraft was a weekly event at DFW. Some of that was the fault of the supervisors being apathetic, a lot of it was lack of communication between departments.

From what I see as a traveler, ORD and LAX seem to have their acts together, including responding to irregularities.

MIA and DFW? If you closed the two of them down tomorrow, AA's service levels would double overnight, and lost bag rates would probably disappear...

 

[FWAAA]

Thanks to the internet, there's video available of the masks and some audio from the flight deck:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ktoddstorch/4391784913/

The videographer/commentator was incorrect about altitude - the manual backup system was slow but eventually worked.

 

[jimntx]

Again, Jim, you are assuming that it was communicated to ops that masks were deployed, and/or that the ops agent bothered to pass that along to the ramp manager.

I'm not assuming anything. I learned early on when based at DFW of the problem whereof you speak. However, I also believe that management at all levels of AMR likes it just fine if "someone forgot/failed to tell them." It's a ready-made excuse for doing nothing.

More than once, I have been told, "I didn't know anything about it." When I responded that "I left you a voicemail about the incident right after it happened," I got the "Well, I've been really busy and I haven't had time to listen to voicemails; so, I just deleted them" answer.

I saw the same attitude when I worked for the government a thousand years ago. "If I ignore the problem long enough, or feign ignorance of it, maybe it will go away."

As an example of the way things should be done...one day about two years ago at STL, we took off and had to return to the airport almost immediately because of a mechanical problem. The passengers were asked to remain on board until we knew how long the repair would take or if it could be done in a reasonable amount of time.

As the #2, I was setting up to do a water and juice service for the passengers when the STL Operational Service Manager came on-board to make sure that the passengers AND the crew were ok, and if anyone wanted to leave the a/c to change their travel arrangements to a later flight. She offered to remove any crewmember with pay who didn't feel comfortable continuing the sequence. We were all fine--the return to the airport had been a non-event with the exception of the fire trucks standing by. But, the important thing is she made a PA for the passengers' benefit to let them know what we knew, and offered her help.
That's the way it should be done.

 

[Skymess]

Again, Jim, you are assuming that it was communicated to ops that masks were deployed, and/or that the ops agent bothered to pass that along to the ramp manager.

It's entirely possible (and IMHO quite likely) that nothing was communicated to the airport agents by either the crew or SOC. That's a breakdown in communications.

There's no excuse for a supervisor not coming out to deal with an irate or a jerk, but how do you propose that they proactively react to a situation if they're not told that it happened in the first place?

It's all due to too many managers and not enough people who know how, or have the power, to take care of business.

I've written countless purser and FA reports detailing problems, been involved with regular and purser focus groups about customer service issues, and participated in purser conferences where everyone has the same complaints about AA's inability to connect the dots and have skilled people at the airport who could solve the simplest issues or the most complicated. The only thing that has gotten slightly better through the years is that frontline management no longer work bankers hours. Though, they still don't work late at night or on holidays and never seem to be around when you need them. Even if they are there they usually can't or won't do what needs to be done to solve problems. It's sometimes more irritating for everyone if they are there because most of them have no customer service or people skills and usually wind up irritating people more than assisting them.

They want to trim my salary when they should really just start firing low level managers and pay agents and flight attendants more because we're the ones improvising and helping people out when they most need it; while they are travelling.

 

[Royal Ambassador]

As the #2, I was setting up to do a water and juice service for the passengers when the STL Operational Service Manager came on-board to make sure that the passengers AND the crew were ok, and if anyone wanted to leave the a/c to change their travel arrangements to a later flight. She offered to remove any crewmember with pay who didn't feel comfortable continuing the sequence. We were all fine--the return to the airport had been a non-event with the exception of the fire trucks standing by. But, the important thing is she made a PA for the passengers' benefit to let them know what we knew, and offered her help.
That's the way it should be done.

She came from TWA, didn't she?

 

[upsilon]

Touché! I would bet the farm she did.

 

[jimntx]

She came from TWA, didn't she?

Did you even need to ask? Or, did you need to type six more words to complete your aerobics for the day?