All flight decompression events not reported

Ten minutes after takeoff from Hartford, Conn., on a Delta Connection flight Sept. 9 to Detroit, Steven Smeltzer’s ears popped, and flight attendants yelled at everyone in the Bombardier CRJ700 jet to put on an oxygen mask.

The business traveller from Traverse City, Mich., says he nervously held an oxygen mask to his face until the plane descended below 10,000 feet, and the flight crew said it was safe to remove it. Smeltzer says he doesn’t know what happened to a passenger in the lavatory, where there was no emergency oxygen. Atlantic Southeast Airlines spokesman Jarek Beem says the plane had an air-conditioning problem and made an emergency landing in Albany, N.Y. No passengers required medical care.

Concerned about a terrorist using a chemical oxygen generator as a weapon, the Federal Aviation Administration this year ordered all airlines to remove emergency oxygen from aircraft lavatories. The National Transportation Safety Board cited such generators, which produce oxygen instantaneously, as the probable cause of a 1996 ValuJet Airlines crash that killed 110 in the Florida Everglades. The NTSB said they were being shipped in the cargo hold and probably self-ignited.

Consumer advocates say the order to remove chemical oxygen generators from lavatories may be a smart security decision but is a move that endangers the safety of passengers in another way. "Removing the oxygen from aircraft lavatories and not informing passengers puts the flying public at grave risk," says Kate Hanni, executive director of the consumer-advocacy group FlyersRights.org.

Hanni says the FAA should loudly spread the word to consumers and require airlines to inform passengers during pre-flight safety announcements that no emergency oxygen is inside bathrooms. "At 33,000 feet, a common altitude for commercial jets, you have between 30 and 60 seconds of useful consciousness to reach your seat and get your mask on," she says. "You may not have enough time to do that if you are in a bathroom."

In written responses to USA TODAY questions, the FAA says consumers were informed about the agency’s actions in the Federal Register on March 8 and in a statement posted in the news section of the FAA website.

Rapid decompression events on commercial aircraft "are extremely rare," the FAA says. An FAA advisory committee researching high-altitude flights found there were 2,800 "instances" in a 40-year period in which supplemental oxygen was needed on commercial and general aviation flights. That’s an average of 70 per year.

The advisory committee said that the majority of instances were caused by malfunctions of the cabin pressurization system, and no lives were lost due to lack of oxygen. There have been fatalities, however, after in-flight aircraft decompressions, including a case in 2005, when a Helios Airways Boeing 737 lost pressurization and crashed near Grammatiko, Greece. All 121 people aboard the plane were killed.

Investigators said the crash was caused by incapacitation of the flight crew due to hypoxia, which occurs when there is insufficient oxygen in the blood and body tissue. It can cause loss of consciousness and death.

A military jet caught up with the airliner before it crashed and saw a pilot slumped over the controls, and dangling passenger oxygen masks.

U.S. airlines are required to report to the FAA less severe incidents, including aircraft decompressions and other mechanical problems, in service-difficulty reports. But many events go unreported, or reporting is incomplete, according to reports by the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General.

An analysis of service-difficulty data by USA TODAY and John King, a former airline mechanic, shows airlines reported emergency oxygen masks were deployed on 105 flights from 2001 through October 2011; 37 of the incidents occurred in the past three years, 12 last year, 13 in 2009 and 12 in 2008.

FAA data show only two such incidents during the first 10 months of this year, on an April 1 American Airlines flight and a Jan. 13 American Eagle flight. But there were others.

FAA service-difficulty data don’t mention oxygen-mask deployment in at least two incidents: the Sept. 9 Delta Connection flight and a July 4 American Eagle flight. These were reported to USA TODAY when it surveyed very frequent fliers who provide information on its Road Warrior panel. The events were confirmed by the airlines involved. Of 38 Road Warriors who responded to the survey, 13 said they’d been on a flight in which emergency oxygen masks were deployed.

USA TODAY also requested data from NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System, which lets airline employees report incidents confidentially. Those data reveal that employees reported six incidents of oxygen-mask deployment in the first four months of this year.

NASA’s reporting system is voluntary; many airline employees are unaware of it or unwilling to submit reports. The system states that the number of reports it receives represents "the lower measure of the true number of such events that are occurring."

Another data search done by NASA in mid-June showed that airline employees reported to NASA 13 emergency descents by aircraft during the first three months of this year because of "cabin pressurization/oxygen system issues." There were 33 such descents last year reported to NASA, 36 in 2009 and 41 in 2008.

Myron Hayden, who was on the July 4 American Eagle flight, says he knew something was wrong when foam came out of his full soft drink can. "Once the masks dropped, it took a second to sink in what had just happened," he recalls. He says the pilot said that the aircraft was at 20,000 feet, and a few minutes elapsed before passengers could take off their oxygen masks.

No airline or FAA data track how frequently a passenger or flight crew member is in a lavatory during a decompression. In March, when the FAA published its rule ordering removal of emergency oxygen in lavatories, the agency assumed that a person would be in a lavatory 50% of the time when supplemental oxygen was needed.

The FAA said in the Federal Register that it "envisions a two- to four-year regulatory process to restore the affected oxygen systems to their full operational capability." During that time, "the slight risk to a small number of individuals is outweighed by the elimination of a greater security risk."

In written responses to USA TODAY questions, the FAA says the chemical oxygen generators are the "most efficient" type of oxygen system. Airlines commonly use them "because they are smaller, weigh less and are easier to maintain compared to other means of supplying oxygen." The agency says that "a gaseous system" that will fit into the available space in aircraft lavatories and meet the agency’s performance requirements is not available. "Should such a system be proposed, the FAA would be ready to approve it."

The FAA’s two- to four-year time frame "is too long for aircraft lavatories to be without supplemental oxygen, particularly in light of potentially losing a pilot or flight attendant who may be in the lavatory during a decompression," says the Association of Flight Attendants union in written responses to USA TODAY questions.

Other types of oxygen systems exist that don’t pose a security risk and can be installed quickly, flight attendants and consumer safety advocates say.

The flight attendants union advocates using compressed oxygen systems similar to those used in ambulances. These systems "may not currently provide the duration of oxygen" called for by FAA regulations, the Association of Flight Attendants says. They would, however, "provide meaningful oxygen capability and help protect the health of passengers, flight attendants and pilots in the lavatories" during a rapid decompression at high altitude.

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