A United Airlines flight bound for Amsterdam diverted to Bangor, Maine after a cabin pressurization issue onboard.
United flight 968, operated by a Boeing 787-9, took off from San Francisco on-time on Sunday with 197 passengers and 13 crewmembers onboard.
A cabin pressurization issue occurred over Newfoundland and Labrador, prompting the plane to turn south toward the U.S. East Coast. Oxygen masks were deployed, but it is not clear if passengers were instructed to put them on*.
The plane landed in Bangor, Maine (BGR) around 1:00AM. Passengers were offered overnight accommodation in Bangor and then transferred to Newark, where they were rebooked to Amsterdam. UA968 was originally expected to continue from Bangor to Amsterdam after being serviced, but was cancelled. Instead, a 777-200 was sent in to “rescue” stranded passengers and flew them to Newark on Monday afternoon as UA2805. Then UA2806, operated by a different 787-9, flew the passengers to Amsterdam.
No injuries were reported due to the cabin pressurization issue.
CONCLUSION
Passengers finally arrived in Amsterdam this morning, one day late. Instead of flying nonstop from San Francisco to Amsterdam, they ended up flying San Francisco to Bangor to Newark to Amsterdam. I suspect most did not enjoy the “scenic” route as much as I would have…
*Just a small side thought – if an oxygen mask dropped in front of you, would you put it on instinctively or wait for crewmember instruction? The safety video suggests you just put it on, but what would you do?
Would they have been compensated per EU rules ? Or does that apply only to EU carriers flying to Europe ?
EU261/2004 would not apply because it was a U.S. carrier departing the USA.
Given the timeframes I’ve heard about how long you have before losing consciousness (what…10-15 seconds?) I’m not waiting for someone to tell me “oops never mind you’re ok!”
instantly put it on.
The masks deploy when cabin altitude reaches around 14,000 feet. On a 787 normal cabin altitude is around 6,000 feet. The cabin altitude would most likely have been climbing for a few minutes and the crew would have started an emergency descent BEFORE the masks come down. In this case yes, still initially put it on, but the crew probably instructed them not to wear them. The malfunction sounds like a malfunction of the masks falling outside of normal system logic. But who knows…
Steve S… in this case there is no way they would have had only 10-15 seconds. That’s at 37000FT. There is no way the cabin altitude instantly went from 6000-37000 that’s an explosive decompression and there would have been much more press about the incident and most likely injuries.
I guess that I probably wouldn’t have even thought to ask myself the question … until now. I think I would have just put the mask on. It would seem to be the “safer” decision.
As far as being diverted to Bangor, Maine, well, yes, I probably would have been upset. Not only would I have gotten to Europe a day late, I probably would have had an onward connection, given my travel habits. However, the silver lining for me would be being able to say that I had finally been to my 50th state! 😉
Flight attendants are instructed to immediately put on the nearest mask and then strap into a seatbelt, wherever in the aircraft they are at the time those masks drop. Don’t wait for instructions because it is very unlikely your flight attendants will be anywhere near a P.A. to make that announcement.
SFO-AMS is 5400 miles. SFO-BGR-EWR-AMS is 6832. I’d expect those miles as well as a bonus for the delay.
Agreed!
If the rubber jungle drops and there seems to be no cause for it I would give it a min or so or so before putting my mask on. Your ears are actually pretty sensitive and they are going to tell you if a rapid change in cabin pressure is happening. If its a slow change you have time given that deployment happens at 14,000′ cabin altitude.
The downside to putting the mask on is that pulling it down activates the Oxygen Generator in the Overhead which does generate a lot of heat. So your better off not using the mask if it turns out its not really needed.
Now of course if the rubber jungle drops and your ears are alerting you to a change in pressure put the mask on immediately and make sure your seat belt is on tight. Because at that point you may be about to experience what we like to call an “emergency descent”.
And yet Europeans delayed three hours for a broken toilet will probably get €600 more in cash compensation than these passengers will ever see. We need something like EU261 — we need it now.
What we need is a level playing field between airlines and customers. Just to cite one example mistake fares. Airlines can come back weeks later declare a fare a “mistake” and invalidate tickets at little to no consequence. But if you the consumer make an error your hosed.
I was on that plane. In AMS now. The situation was much worse than reported. We lost lost Aux power….I was seated just over wing and felt a thud/boom, then a slight deceleration The pilot, within 15 seconds was on the radio saying, ‘prepare for emergency descent.” . We dropped 39k to 10k in 6 minutes, check the flightaware data. Lost Aux power generators and plane was losing many systems. We instantly lost aircon, and the plane got very, very hot over the next hour as we limped from Labrador south at 10k feet. O2 masks were deployed at 12k, and we all put them on. The pilots were terrific and leveled us out at 10k feet. Plane felt controlled and rock solid, but over time, as we tried to make it to Newark, we kept losing more systems. Power and hydraylics were affected, and so we diverted to Bangor with its 11k foot runway, We came in low and very slow….likely a few knots over stall, in a nearly dead stick landing. Still a little rough, then instant and hard braking and ambulances and firetrucks lining runway. We did make it to the gate under our own power and firefighters boarded the plane to check stuff out before we could deplane. Just a precaution. Again, crew was awesome. But hydralics were so messed up that we did not ever get our checked bags as they could not open the cargo door until early the next day. Truly a Terrifying experience, and it ended up 37 hours SFO to AMS instead of 10.5 hours. Minimal compensation.. United finally got it together but it was a pain to have to go down to Newark, then board another 787-9 that also had issues and departed an hour late due to mechanical issues. We are happy to be in europe but lost a full day. Again, happy to be alive and well, and the pilots were decisive and awesome.
Fascinating. I’ve sent you an email.
I was on the same flight and as RP said it was a really terrifying experience. There was an KLM flight attendant on board as a passenger who helped out by translating things in Dutch over the intercom for us Dutchies, and he also talked of hydraulic system issues. There seemed to be a lot more going on than what the ‘clean’ newsreports tell us. I’m trying to find out more but seem to get nowhere, so glad to read this account of the things happening. Hopefully there will be a follow up on this on your website. And regarding to this oxygen mask question: yes you put it on instinctively once it drops – I’m not a pilot and can’t judge whether it’s necessary or not. So if it drops, put it on.
Always putting the masks on. Always.
Better safe than sorry.
Failing to do so is akin to disregarding a fire drill in middle school, and should get you in the same level of trouble.