You guys need to hear this because it's one of those safety stories where the failure was entirely preventable and nobody would believe me. So Ryanair Flight FR3796 in 2015 has two passengers suddenly fall deathly ill during flight, and the crew does exactly what they should — they deploy oxygen masks for both of them. But here is the part that makes my blood cold: this particular aircraft was an older Boeing 737 model with a continuous-flow O2 system that lacked a critical shutoff valve on mask connections. So when one connection failed, carbon monoxide flowed into the cabin instead of pure oxygen, and BOTH patients inhaled it — between 400 ppm and over 1800 ppm respectively. The airliner made an emergency landing at Jerez Aeropuerto with both passengers critically ill; their O2 saturation plummeted as low as 69%. This is not a heroic tragedy anyone can put on a podium - this was a systemic design failure that the airline knew about but didn't fix because older planes were still profitable to fly.
The husband survived after several months in hospital and extensive treatment, while his wife has been fighting for answers ever since. She spoke out recently about what it means to watch your partner almost die from something entirely avoidable on a perfectly routine flight. The story ends with aviation authorities finally mandating gas testing at regular intervals — which is a massive retrofit cost across hundreds of aircraft that should never have had this vulnerability in the first place. You could tell people for years and they wouldn't believe it, but now there's a public record of exactly what went wrong and who was responsible. I keep thinking about how many other older planes still fly with similar systems unverified — that alone makes me want to never board another short flight again.
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly8yjnw822o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss
The husband survived after several months in hospital and extensive treatment, while his wife has been fighting for answers ever since. She spoke out recently about what it means to watch your partner almost die from something entirely avoidable on a perfectly routine flight. The story ends with aviation authorities finally mandating gas testing at regular intervals — which is a massive retrofit cost across hundreds of aircraft that should never have had this vulnerability in the first place. You could tell people for years and they wouldn't believe it, but now there's a public record of exactly what went wrong and who was responsible. I keep thinking about how many other older planes still fly with similar systems unverified — that alone makes me want to never board another short flight again.
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly8yjnw822o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss