India A320 near Mangalore on Feb 27th 2017, loss of cabin pressure

Last Update: March 7, 2018 / 16:52:24 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Feb 27, 2017

Classification
Report

Cause
Loss of cabin pressure

Airline
Air India

Flight number
AI-681

Departure
Mumbai, India

Destination
Cochin, India

Aircraft Registration
VT-ESE

Aircraft Type
Airbus A320

ICAO Type Designator
A320

An Air India Airbus A320-200, registration VT-ESE performing flight AI-681 from Mumbai to Cochin (India) with 58 passengers and 6 crew, was enroute at FL390 near Mangalore when the crew received an overheat indication followed by a fault message for air conditioning pack #1, the cabin altitude began to increase. The crew requested a descent, however, before the crew could initiated the descent the cabin altitude increased rapidly prompting the crew to declare Mayday and perform an emergency descent, passenger oxygen masks were deployed. The aircraft diverted to Mangalore where the aircraft landed safely about 25 minutes after the first indication for pack #1.

India's DGCA released their final report concluding the probable cause of the incident was:

Cabin pressurisation failure occurred due to malfunction of flow control valve no. 2 at higher altitude.

The DGCA analysed: "Flow Control Valve No.2 was sluggish and was confirmed to be faulty. It implies that the aircraft was being served by only one pack for air conditioning. The aircraft was flying at high altitude of FL 390. There was a fault message for flow control valve no.1 also. However, the fault on flow control valve no.1 could not be confirmed during check in the shop. This kind of anomaly in serviceability of flow control valve is possible as environmental conditions are not the same at higher altitude (FL 390) and on ground. It implies that flow control valve no.2 malfunctioned and bleed through flow control valve no.1 was not sufficient to maintain pressurisation in the cabin at higher altitude. Insufficient bleed led to depressurisation of the cabin. Thus, it was malfunction of flow control valve no. 2 at higher altitude that led to aircraft cabin pressurisation failure."
Incident Facts

Date of incident
Feb 27, 2017

Classification
Report

Cause
Loss of cabin pressure

Airline
Air India

Flight number
AI-681

Departure
Mumbai, India

Destination
Cochin, India

Aircraft Registration
VT-ESE

Aircraft Type
Airbus A320

ICAO Type Designator
A320

This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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