davidbunin
Nice photo. Not a 737-900, nor any other variant of 737. But a nice action shot, and it’s the right airline.
Edit: They changed the image after I made this post.
Nice photo. Not a 737-900, nor any other variant of 737. But a nice action shot, and it’s the right airline.
Edit: They changed the image after I made this post.
Actually, it’s an airbus A321.
Everybody is wrong except Jetjock6o. According the the FAA registry, N875DN is a B737-900ER.
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Did the problem solving by the maintenance crew involve tightening and replacing a few bolts on a door plug?
If I took that advice, I would likely have called it a B-25.
They changed the image after I posted. The original image was a 757 touching down at landing, possibly in Phoenix. For what it’s worth, the original image was a nicer/prettier picture.
Rather than focusing on a photo, how about the story? From the article, it appears that the tube didn’t pressurize. How do they get eardrum damage and the other whines from that? The rubber jungle didn’t drop so the psid wasn’t that great. Any one with injuries from that shouldn’t have been flying anyway.
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There are many reasons for loss of pressurization or failure to pressurize. Could be anything from a stuck outflow valve to a switchology problem. (That switchology problem just happened recently after maintenance and a poor pre-start check.) And as for passengers complaining of ear damage, that happens all the time, even on normal flights. For most people, airline travel is an unfamiliar experience, and the way some of them cope with the feelings of powerlessness is to complain about everything. I had a passenger complain of “permanent ear damage” on a perfectly normal flight, and when I made a suggestion about how to clear the ears, his reply was, “Oh yeah, it’s my fault!” And so it goes…
rpstrong, the article says the masks did NOT deploy. Most jets have it in their After Takeoff or Climb Checklist to check the pressurization. Would make sense if the masks did not drop, it was noticed and the climb stopped prior to reaching the trigger cabin altitude. As for the number of people with medical issues, if the -900 had a full cabin of around 190 pax, 10 people having sinus/eustachian tube issues doesn’t seem to me to be a high number. Not to belittle their pain or discomfort.
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When I trained on my first pressurized airplane, I was told horror stories of the outflow valve suddenly opening or closing. The instantaneous jump in pressure could apparently be quite large (and not result in a loss of pressure or oxygen mask deployment). Pure conjecture, but I remember the horror stories well from my instructor…
Don, most pressurization systems trigger their warning/backup systems based on cabin altitude which in jets will lag a bit behind the aircraft ROC. Airport elevation at SLC is around 4200’. In normal ops the system would try to maintain the departure elevation until reaching the max pressure differential (if indeed the leg is long enough to reach that high), then begin driving the cabin to hold the max diff. I’ve had a press failure in a Lear where the cabin altitude reached and held 2000’ after a sea level departure, we leveled off at 14k FT. Checklist discipline during climb caught the problem and we diverted back to the departure airport.
No worries mate! Confusion noted. 
