No other planes involved in mid-flight scare says Air New Zealand
Investigation into loss of cabin pressure not being extended to other planes in the fleet.
Hot Topic
Long reads
Air New Zealand says its investigation into why a 737-300 aircraft lost cabin pressure during a flight from Wellington to Auckland this morning is not being extended to other planes in the fleet.
Passengers were surprised - andf some terrified - when the cabin started to depressurise and oxygen masks came down.
National List MP Claudette Hauiti and Olympic gold medal winning triathlete Hamish Carter were both on board.
Air New Zealand's engineers are checking the plane to determine the cause of the incident.
The Transport Accident Investigation Commission is also investigating.
But Air NZ told NBR ONLINE the investigation is confined only to the plane which experienced the problems at this stage.
Air New Zealand has 11 Boeing 737-300s in its fleet, which are more than 15 years old on average.
They are progressively being phased out and replaced by bigger, more fuel-efficient Airbus A320s.
Air New Zealand chief flight operations and safety officer, Captain David Morgan, says, “A Boeing 737-300 aircraft operating as NZ414 travelling between Wellington and Auckland this morning experienced a gradual loss of cabin pressure on approach to Auckland which caused the oxygen masks to automatically deploy in the cabin.
"The pilots immediately initiated a descent to 7,000 feet and the cabin crew advised passengers that oxygen masks were no longer required at that point. The aircraft landed without further incident and engineers are now investigating the cause of the incident.”
NBR staff
Fri, 30 Aug 2013
Fri, 30 Aug 2013
© All content copyright NBR. Do not reproduce in any form without permission, even if you have a paid subscription.
No other planes involved in mid-flight scare says Air New Zealand
31972