http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000204/aponline012619_000.htm

Plane Has Cabin Pressure Trouble

The Associated Press
Friday, Feb. 4, 2000; 1:26 a.m. EST

SAN FRANCISCO  A flight from Los Angeles to San Jose had trouble controlling cabin pressure Thursday, forcing a drop in altitude and the deployment of passenger oxygen masks.

No one was hurt and the passengers were able to breathe on their own. But some of the 75 passengers were shaken up by the problems with Shuttle by United Shuttle Flight 2622, spokesman Jim Peterson said.

Four reported earaches, United spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch said.

The problem occurred about 10:10 a.m., 20 minutes before landing and the plane dropped its altitude to cope, although there are conflicting reports on how far.

Peterson said the plane dropped to 10,000 feet from its cruising altitude of about 32,000 feet. United spokesman Ebenhoch said the plane dropped to 8,000 feet from 25,000 feet.

The Boeing 737 landed safely in San Jose, where engineers were trying to determine what caused the problem.

-- Steve Baxter (chicoqh@home.com), February 04, 2000

Answers

Great work catching these items Steve! I wonder if anyone has any accurate data over several year concerning the frequency of these kinds of incidents. My perception is that there is a higher than normal rate.

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 04, 2000.

Here's a site that might give you answers, Carl

http://airsafe.com/

-- (air@sickness.now), February 04, 2000.

Carl, just found your link for such records on the NTSB website.

At first glance, looks to me like Jan. 2000 was an average month for accidents/incidents as compared to Januaries from previous years.

http://www.ntsb.gov/Avi ation/months.htm

-- (air@sickness.now), February 04, 2000.

Which is why "first glances" aren't worth the paper they're printed on. I did a more detailed look for January 99 and this is what I found.

Out of all the "incidents" on the page, only 10 involved large aircraft. All the others were Cessna, Beech, Piper etc which is not what has been posted here. Small planes have trouble all the time - usually due to pilot error or lack of maintenance, etc.

As far as the large planes, there were 7 Boeing, one Douglas DC-9 and 2 McDonnel Douglas (MD) incidents and out of those, look at the details below:

Boeing
757 - Incident - Proximity to another plane
727 - Incident - Cargo door left open
727 - Ground crewman injured hand on door
767 - Hard landing (no mention of mechanical failure)
727 - Engine trouble
747 - Engine fire on ground
747 - Incident - Encountered clear-air turbulance

Douglas
DC-9 - Incident - Encountered wake-turbulance

McDonnel Douglas
MD-82 - No info (says was investigated by Italy)
MD-11 - Smoke in cabin

It should be noted that likely only 3-4 of these incidents would have even been posted on this board, the rest aren't even significant or due to mechanical failures. Also out of all 10, not one involved fatalities.

So to say that what has occurred so far this year is just par for the course is 100%, completely wrong.

-- Steve Baxter (chicoqh@home.com), February 04, 2000.

January 1998 Info:

Again, only large planes included.

757 - Tail impacted ground on landing (sounds from report like weather/pilot error)
DC-6B - Aborted takeoff, crashed off runway
767 - Flight diverted due to pilot illness
DHC-8 - Vibration, returned to airport (ground maintenance screw-up)
727 - Airplane & tug collide on tarmac
757 - Turbulance - coffee pot falls injuring one
767 - Electrical fire
MD-600N - Hard landing due to pilot trainee
MD-80 - "Firm" touchdown
707 - Operational error involving 4 separate planes including airforce one

Summary:
No fatalities. Possibly 3 of these incidents would have been posted here - *if* they had been reported in the media at all, and *if* someone on this board happened to come across the article.

-- Steve Baxter (chicoqh@home.com), February 04, 2000.

"Which is why "first glances" aren't worth the paper they're printed on. I did a more detailed look for January 99 and this is what I found.

Out of all the "incidents" on the page, only 10 involved large aircraft. All the others were Cessna, Beech, Piper etc which is not what has been posted here. Small planes have trouble all the time - usually due to pilot error or lack of maintenance, etc."

Excuse me Steve, but I don't get your point? This table records ALL aviation accidents/incidents, up to us to pick out what's relevant out of it for the purpose of our discussion.

" As far as the large planes, there were 7 Boeing, one Douglas DC-9 and 2 McDonnel Douglas (MD) incidents and out of those, look at the details below:"[snip]

"It should be noted that likely only 3-4 of these incidents would have even been posted on this board, the rest aren't even significant or due to mechanical failures. Also out of all 10, not one involved fatalities."

And none from Jan. 2000 are significant either. Note that this site compiles accidents/incidents that only the NTSB had to investigate, here in the US. Fatal accidents in other countries such as Swissair aren't my concern here. If we didn't start paying attention to all plane crashes, none of them would have been posted here either.

" So to say that what has occurred so far this year is just par for the course is 100%, completely wrong. "

Well ok I agree, it's not par for the course since less accidents happened in Jan. 2000.

I went back and looked closer at January 2000 also.

January 2000 has LESS incidents/accidents with major airlines than 1999 or 1998. None fatal.

*Boeing 757 N909AW Nonfatal Sch 121 AMERICA WEST AIRLINES INC.

*Dehavilland DASH 8 N809EX Incident Sch 121 ALLEGHENY AIRLINES

*British Aerospace JETSTREAM 31 N842JS Incident Sch 121 CHATAQUA AIRLINES, INC. (D.B.A. US AIRWAYS EXPRESS)

Now we have one major fatal accident with Alaska airlines in Feb. 2000, but the month isn't over and there's no data yet for it on this website. But if you look at all the fatal accidents in major airlines since 1970, you'll see that most of them except a very few has had fatal accidents. This was the first for Alaska airlines since 1983.

I don't see a spike increase anywhere in North America yet, so explain to me what you're trying to say?

-- (air@sickness.now), February 04, 2000.