Reports: 26 people hospitalized after emergency landing of Ryanair plane in central France

[gi4obama]

Source: AP

PARIS (AP) _ French officials say 26 people have been hospitalized after an emergency landing of a Ryanair plane in central France.

Officials at Limoges airport said Tuesday the flight carrying passengers from Bristol, England, to Gerona, Spain was forced to land in the French town late Monday because the cabin depressurized suddenly.

France-Info radio reported that 168 passengers were on board the Boeing 737 that lost 16,400 feet in five minutes.

Other details were not immediately available.

Read more: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-france-emergency-landing,0,5236525.story

[Eurobabe]

1. Oh great. What is going on over here lately??

:shrug:

[CreekDog]

2. Ryan Air? Well no wonder.

they probably were charging for oxygen masks. :eyes:

[gi4obama]

3. I bet that was an interesting drop

16,400 feet in five minutes!

[alphafemale]

5. Yeah. That's a little over 50ft per second.

That had to be pretty terrifying.

[enlightenment]

7. I suspect that when you suddenly find yourself unable to

breathe, the terror of an emergency descent pales by comparison.

[Hawkowl]

10. Within normal descent parameters

That is only about 3300 feet per minute descent rate. Quite normal. I use between a 3000 - 3600 fpm descent rate on almost every flight.

[Nihil]

12. Yeah but be fair ...

... not everyone is a skydiver ...
:silly:

[Ghost Dog]

4. Damn' media over here (I'm in Spanish Canary Islands)

is stirring up plenty of sick aviation hysteria.

[jeff30997]

6. It's a good thing that...

When it happened they were not at an altitude of 15,399 feet.

[enlightenment]

8. Here's a link to the BBC article on this event.

No one was seriously injured. If people would pay attention to the flight attendants during the safety talk and read the information card as they are asked, they could save themselves a lot of personal panic.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7581492.stm

[TommyO]

9. The plain didn't drop or lose 26,200 feet in five minutes

It was most likely piloted down that far in a controlled descent to get the aircraft under 10,000' where oxygen masks aren't necessary, standard procedure in response to a sudden loss of cabin pressure.

[minnesota_liberal]

11. As usual, the media gets it (mostly) wrong

The focus of this story is on the rapid descent, which was standard operating procedure in response to the sudden loss of cabin pressure. Get the plane down to where the pressure is closer to normal and there's sufficient oxygen.

I can understand that some of the passengers were clueless but wish the media would get it right.