Passengers on a Ryanair flight that was forced to make an emergency landing in France have claimed oxygen masks failed to work when the cabin lost air pressure and the airplane plunged thousands of feet.
Sixteen passengers were taken to hospital after the sudden loss of cabin pressure on flight FR9336 from Bristol to Barcelona last night. It was diverted to Limoges International airport as a "safety precaution", the budget airline said.
The Arctic explorer Pen Hadow, his wife, Mary, and their son and daughter were among the 168 passengers who feared for their lives as the aircraft plummeted and oxygen masks dropped down. Hadow said a number of oxygen masks inside the cabin failed to work properly.
"Mine wasn't filling up with oxygen and neither was my son's," he said. "He was hyperventilating. From where I was sitting I could see about 20 masks and only a few of them were inflating. It was extremely variable as to who got oxygen in their masks, and the cabin crew didn't seem to know what to do."
Ryanair, however, said the masks were not faulty.
"Our engineers have inspected the aircraft overnight and have confirmed that the oxygen masks which deployed were working properly," a spokeswoman said.
The Ryanair chief executive, Michael O'Leary, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "The oxygen masks were working, the correct safety procedures were followed."
Passengers have complained that no announcement was made by the crew when the masks dropped down. But O'Leary defended the crew's actions, saying it was not possible for them to make an announcement about the situation because safety regulations meant the pilots and cabin staff had to don oxygen masks themselves.
"The first thing we do in these situations is divert to safety, take the safety-first option," he said. "We have to require that the pilots and the cabin crew also deploy their oxygen masks. They can't be making passenger PA announcements when they have their oxygen masks on. As the passengers confirmed, the pilot did make an announcement - once he got down to 8,000ft where it is safe to take the oxygen masks off - that they were diverting to Limoges."
Hadow, who in 2003 became the first man to walk solo and unsupported from the northern coast of Canada to the north pole, said passengers were terrified.
"I would say some people thought we were going to die - that is how frightening it was. The woman sitting in the seats in front of us was whimpering," he said.
"I knew it wasn't an engine problem. There was a sudden drop in temperature and a rush of cold air. You think to yourself: God, is there a hole in the aircraft? It actually felt like someone had opened a door at the back of the aircraft. It was incredibly cold.
"The next thing the oxygen masks were dropping. My highest priority was to get a mask on to my son who was sitting next to me in a bemused and frightened state. We were descending for about five minutes from what I assume was 30,000 or 40,000ft to 8,000ft. As we landed we saw fire engines every quarter of a mile down the runway."
A full investigation was due to begin later today. Ryanair said the aircraft involved was five years old and was last serviced on July 24. The captain had flown with the company for nearly six years and had more than 13,000 hours' flying experience.
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