Earlier today, we received word of an incident involving Jet Airways, where shortly after takeoff, a few passengers on board a Mumbai – Jaipur flight suffered nosebleeds and headaches. The matter is under investigation and here is what we know about the incident.
9W 697 with 166 passengers on-board took off from Mumbai at around 5:52 AM (IST) and was climbing to cruise altitude. During the climb, a few passengers started bleeding from their ears and nose. Others complained of headaches and dizziness. Oxygen masks were deployed which are a sign of a drop in cabin pressure. The aircraft turned back and made an emergency landing in Mumbai. On the ground, around 30 affected passengers were attended to by medical professionals.
In this age of Social Media, of course, passengers always keep their phones on. Here is one of the many videos of the incident that surfaced.
DGCA, India’s civil aviation regulator issued a preliminary statement. It said,
During climb, crew forgot to select bleed switch due to which cabin pressurisation could not be maintained.
What is bleed air? It’s the compressed air which gets sucked into an airplane’s engine that then mixes with the fuel before ignition. A portion of this air is used to pressurize cabins in modern jet airplanes. Here is a good read if you’d like to understand Bleed Air more.
Bottomline
This new incident causes some more flutter for Jet Airways who is in the news not for positive reasons these days. We don’t know yet who missed out doing their job and are keeping our eyes on the investigation.
What do you make of this situation?
Goodness, this is height of carelessness.