Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Ryanair flight makes emergency landing

|
|
 
  
Published: Aug. 26, 2008 at 11:49 AM

LIMOGES, France, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Airline officials say 16 people were hospitalized after a Ryanair flight en route from England to Spain made an emergency landing in France.

The plane, carrying 168 people, diverted Monday night to Limoges, France, after the cabin pressure dropped suddenly, said Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive.

Several passengers on the flight, including Arctic explorer Pen Hadow, whose 9-year-old son, Wilf, was hospitalized, said oxygen masks failed to work properly and the crew failed to calm frightened passengers.

"Well over 80 percent of people on that flight knew they were going to die," Hadow told The Times of London.

O'Leary, however, said the masks did function and the crew acted properly. The crew, he said, couldn't communicate with the passengers because safety rules require the pilots and cabin staff to put oxygen masks on immediately.

The 16 people hospitalized were being treated for ear problems caused by the sudden decompression, authorities said.

Topics: Michael O'Leary
© 2008 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Notable deaths of 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee AmfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala
Indianapolis 500 Presidential Medal of Freedom Memorial Day around the nation
Additional Top News Stories
1 of 20
Singer Janelle Monae arrives at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards in Universal City, California
View Caption
Singer Janelle Monae arrives for the MTV Movie Awards at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California. UPI/Jim Ruymen
fark
Traveling to the U.S.? If invited to a dinner party, bring a gift of wine, but not cash or toiletries...
Man turns dead pet cat into remote-controlled helicopter, calls it art (w/WTF pics)
"Good News" clubs teach children in public schools the Biblical importance of killing all nonbelievers...
Five arrested in prostitution sting. Article lists their names, ages and distance from a church
Photoshop this power tower technician
Driving drunk and unlicensed, with a kid not even buckled let alone in a safety seat, en route to...