To the flight attendants and pilots on the April 19, 2011 Delta flight 2352 from Charleston to Atlanta. On our way home from South Carolina after a lovely weekend with the Weaverents, mjw and i had our first ever depressurizing experience in a plane. Much like the firefighter at the doorbell, i thought something was weird when i had to clear my ears on ascent. MJW responded to my "are your ears popping more than usual or is it just me" with a shake of the head and a "yeah i guess," and returned to reading the Harpers in his lap without a second thought. As i anxiously looked at our ascent and wondered if i had a first ever head cold airplane problem while repeatedly trying to clear my ears, the compartments above our heads opened, as if scripted as part of the educational video on an international flight and we were instructed to start breathing the oxygen. Now any EMT knows that bag should be inflated, and it's a little sobering to realize that non-rebreather still works with the bag deflated. It turns out the snapping on the cord as described during the instruction opens a valve and allows the air to travel up a string on the interior of the bag. This plane was outfitted with single tanks per row (you might be able to see in the photo). We both suddenly realized that the education on an airplane is radically different than it should be, with seatbelt instructions being given to people already belted, and the instructions on oxygen masks limited to the middle of the lesson and little focus being attended by the passengers. However, i thank the passengers, too. No stress, a few glances around, but no one doing any screaming in shock or hyperventilating. For the first time i saw the truth of the crowd at calm and orderly, and it was cool. The flight attendants and pilots helped ease all of our fears with communication and calm voices. And even though we rapidly descended back to 10K feet (exactly as we were supposed to), the pilots gave little of their anxiety away with their voices until after we landed and walked out and one admitted that had never happened to him before and appeared pale.
The pilots made a quick descent from 18K to 10K feet to return us to breathing level and we had an otherwise uneventful trip to the connecting flight in Atlanta that would take us back to Philadelphia. Reports of lightheadedness for a bit from mjw, and i had a slight headache. That was all short lived.
I asked about fuel and turning back (it happened early in the flight). For nerdy types wondering:
http://avherald.com/h?article=43b3a3bf&opt=1
Lots of other airlines had problems on the same day, including an engine failure after takeoff and drunk passengers on an international flight:
http://www.arte-ev.de/html/NewsSuchErg.php
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