New Jet Forced To Make Emergency Landing Failure Of Clamp Blamed For Sudden Loss Of Cabin Pressure
A new Boeing 777 jetliner on a test flight made an emergency landing Thursday afternoon at Boeing Field after the plane suddenly lost cabin pressure, apparently because a clamp on a duct failed.
Four of the 19 people on board the plane were taken to a hospital for treatment of decompression sickness. They were expected to fully recover, a doctor said.
An initial inspection showed the aircraft itself apparently received little or no damage, Boeing spokesman Brian Ames said.
The plane, which had taken off from Boeing Field at about 11:19 a.m., was about 30 miles north of the airport and flying at 43,100 feet when it lost cabin pressure at 3:05 p.m., said Boeing spokesman Bill Curry.
The plane, the second 777 to fly and the first plane built for United Airlines, was flying on battery power only with other systems inoperative as part of a planned Federal Aviation Administration certification test, Ames said.
The pilot rapidly descended to a lower altitude where the air is thicker, a standard procedure when a plane decompresses.
The pilot declared an emergency and the FAA cleared traffic at Boeing Field so the plane could make an emergency landing. It landed safely about 3:21 p.m.
Two Boeing employees, a 33-yearold flight engineer and a 43-year-old flight analyst, were taken first to Harborview Medical Center. Hospital spokesman Larry Zalin said both “fainted for some period of time due to a change of pressure on the jet.”
The two were later transferred to Virginia Mason Medical Center. They and two other men aboard the plane were put into hyperbaric chambers, where they were given pure oxygen.
“Their prognosis is excellent. They should all have complete recovery after the hyperbaric treatment,” said Dr. Neil Hampson, medical director of the hospital’s hyperbaric department.
The four asked that their names not be released, he added.
Several others in the test crew aboard the plane were evaluated by medical units on the ground.
The 777s in the test program have a flight crew of two and carry a variety of engineers, depending on the experiments to be performed. Instead of passenger seats, the planes are loaded with test gear and computer work stations in the main cabin.
Ames said a preliminary inspection on the ground revealed that a clamp on an air conditioning duct failed. He said the reason for the failure is under investigation.
“We’re still evaluating the impact on the airplane itself but there isn’t any reason to believe at this time there will be any impact on the overall 777 program,” Ames said.
The two-engine 777 is the secondlargest plane Boeing makes, after the 747-400 jumbo jet. The initial model will carry 375 passengers in two classes with a range of up to 4,600 miles, while a longer-range version will carry 305 passengers up to 7,600 miles.