A plane's oxygen masks were mistakenly released and passengers were apparently terrified
British Airways has issued an apology to passengers on a flight from Singapore to London after the plane’s oxygen masks were mistakenly released, and an automated voice announced it was “not a drill.”
Mitchell Webb, a passenger, told USA Today of the scary incident that it occurred just two hours into the flight on Monday morning. He said the media screens went out first and the lights shut off and then masks descended in front of the passengers. Flight attendants then said there was a “technical issue.”
“My mindset given the circumstances was that if a system failed, what else would go wrong on this flight subsequently?” Webb said in an email to the outlet. “We received no communications on the incident itself from [the pilot], and we only heard again from the pilot 45 minutes before landing (around 10 hours later) to give us the usual update on weather at the landing location, etc. – with not a single mention or apology regarding the incident that occurred.”
Webb told The Sun, “One of the flight attendants admitted that some of the masks didn’t even administer properly from the overhead bit.”
The outlet also reports that a fellow passenger Emileigh Spurdens shared on Twitter, “Flight from hell @British_Airways Always promising when the pilot presses the wrong button and the oxygen masks fall down.”
An email sent to passengers and obtained by The Sun read:
We would like to apologize for the inadvertent oxygen mask deployment on your flight from Singapore and any distress or concern this may have caused.
We would like to reassure you that safety is always our main priority and this was not compromised on this occasion.
We trust that our flight and cabin crew dealt with this situation in a professional manner you would expect from us.
British Airlines provided the following statement to Yahoo Lifestyle: “Our flight and cabin crew reassured customers after oxygen masks were deployed accidentally. We are sorry for the distress this may have caused, and are investigating how it happened.”
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