RAPID DESCENT After Losing Pressurization. REAL ATC

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Hearing a Mayday and all the alarms going off while contacting ATC had to ramp up the anxiety, especially after they didn't respond for a few seconds.

I was on a Southwest flight from Atlanta to Tampa several years ago. We were cruising at 37k feet when the flight attendant announced that the Captain had tole her that there was a cabin pressurization problem, and that the masks would shortly drop from the ceiling. “When they do PUT THEM ON!” Sure enough, shortly after there was a loud bang and the masks dropped. It takes a while to descend to 10,000 feet. We diverted to Tallahassee where the pilot bought pizza for everyone while we waited for a replacement plane (3 hours). By the time we got to Tampa I had an emailed refund for the flight and a $200 voucher. Great response from SW.

Just a note for nervous fliers.. on modern aircraft with modern training, loss of pressurization is easily manageable. If you ever get in this situation it might be scary and they will point the aircraft down more than seems good, but they're just reaching 10k miles as quickly as possible to avoid issues with medically frail passengers. Rapid but consistent descent is actually a good sign, it means the pilots are in complete control.

Transferring between 4 controllers and frequencies in the middle of an emergency is terrifying to me. This is why I am glad that trained professionals fly these things.

Every time I hear mayday calls, I’m always amazed at how calm (for the most part) the majority of the conversations are

I had the same situation single pilot FL320 lost complete pressurization. Boston center was great, I just told them I was rapidly descending to 10,000 ft and they instantly knew what was going on got everyone out of my way and didnt ask questions until I was level.

Through a series of unfortunate events lol, I was on this flight. It wasn’t as bad as you might be thinking, the oxygen masks didn’t come out of the ceiling but I do remember the excellent job by the cabin crew of keeping everyone calm and informed. Since the masks didn’t come down, it did help the anxiety quite a bit. I still wondered if this was it for me for most of it anyhow (I’m at best a nervous flyer.) It was like a month later that the titan submersible was lost and I was just glad it didn’t happen the month before or else I might have been screaming like a little girl. Lol. American Airlines was just as nice as they could be. I felt like hugging the Captain when we deplaned. He looked Sully like, you know? Central casting for an airline pilot. And he just looked like the emergency was just routine. No biggie. Haven’t been on a plane since but hopefully will be ok to fly again lol. Like I said, nervous flyer. Whew.

The masks (also known as the rubber jungle) are designed to sustain life, just enough oxygen to keep you alive but not necessarily conscious. They deploy automatically when the cabin altitude hits 10,000 feet. . . Which constitutes a medical emergency, thats why Center wanted to know. The time of useful consciousness at 32,000 feet is barely under half a minute. Kudos to the pilots who nosed it over, put on their masks and then declared mayday x3. They kept the cabin from reaching 10k feet, by the book. . . and yes Center is intrusive, but they have to get as much information as soon as they can, in case things don’t go so well. . . Good Pilots, you could hear the youth in their voices.

Props to the ATC knowing excatly how to be as specific as possible and yet not giving way too much information. Rapid decompression is super high workload for the pilots for at least the first few minutes of the rapid decent.

Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. In that order, in an emergency. That's why you might not hear from an aircraft in distress immediately since the pilots have to prioritise flying the aircraft first and diagnosing the problem, they'll talk to you when they can.

Man, it's like a friggin interview on the flight deck. So many ATC questions and repeated requests for information they already gave.

Those few silent seconds without the response from American are incredibly tense. Good job on those pilots and the ATC as well as the other pilots mentioning American’s most recent call. Glad they’re okay and G-d Bless Them, Amen 🙏

AA pilots were super busy. Glad they made it back in one piece. Thank you to all the professionals involved

Every time I hear this video I get chills! The alarms and the level of stress in the pilots voice is extremely intense

If they want to, these things go down FAST! Friend of mine was on a flight across Europe when suddenly the pilot pitched down, full airbrakes out, engines to idle. Reason? Medical emergency, cardiac arrest🥶. She (herself a private pilot) was nervous😅. Stated: it felt like falling out of the sky, but controlled. From FL 340 to touchdown was exactly 12 minutes😵‍💫😵‍💫

As someone who’s terrified of flying it gives a lot of comfort to hear how professional and level headed these pilots and ATCs were. All those numbers and information in 4 dimensions said clearly and concisely. Awesome people 👍🏼

As a former military controller I was chewing my finger nails off listening to that first controller. Spit. It. Out. Dude.

Slow pressurization leaks are most commonly caused by the cargo bin thresholds being dented by beltloaders. When I was a ramp agent, we were trained extensively to leave a small gap between plane and beltloader to prevent it, and during our walk around prior to pushback, any dent in the threshold needed to be reported to the captain and our supervisor.

Fascinating. They all did such a wonderful job maintaining their composure and handling the entire situation. Love to hear it.