Air China passengers flying between the Chinese cities of Hong Kong and Dalian had a scare last Tuesday when their plane suddenly dropped altitude and oxygen masks dropped from above.he . last Tuesday in full flight passengers of an Air China company that covered the journey between the Chinese cities of Hong Kong and Dalian.
Fortunately, no passengers or crew members were injured but now the airline is carrying out an investigation that has led back to the flight’s copilot and his e-cigarette.
It has been revealed that the sudden descent was due to the copilot wanting to smoke his e-cigarette without the smoke reachingthe passenger cabin.
But passengers ended up experiencing something much worse: a sudden descent of 6,500 meters and oxygen masks hanging from the upper compartments of their seats.
Investigators have confirmed that when the air conditioner was switched off by the copilot, the oxygen levels in the cabin dropped which causing the masks to fall automatically and led to the pilot quickly descending to alower altitude for the safety of passengers.
Fortunately, the crew soon discovered what was wrong was the air conditioning, then simply reactivated it and brought the plane back to its normal cruising altitude.
Authorities are now investigating the case and examining both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder to determine precisely what caused the incident.
Chinese aviation regulations prohibit flights crews from smoking and in 2006 prohibited passengers from using electronic cigarettes.
Photo: Julian Herzog (cc)
