Ethiopian Airlines' Boeing 787 Dreamliner conduct emergency landing in Mumbai after mid-air depressurisation

An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner , en route to Mumbai from Addis Ababa, was forced to conduct an emergency landing on Friday morning due to cabin depressurisation. The aircraft made an emergency landing in Mumbai at 1:42 am, reigniting concerns about how safe the Boeing aircraft are.

“On landing, seven passengers were attended to by the airport medical team for decompression-related symptoms, out of which one required hospitalisation,” a source close to the matter told The Times of India.

It is pertinent to note that the incident took place days after 11 flyers, including 6 crew members, felt dizzy and nauseous during an Air India Heathrow-Mumbai flight operated with a Boeing 777 aircraft on June 23. The cause of the illness is currently under investigation.

Boeing 787 Dreamliners have come under scrutiny following the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad that killed 241 passengers onboard.

Sources noted that the Friday incident occurred on flight ET640 when the aircraft was flying over the Arabian Sea. According to TOI, the plane was cruising at 33,000 feet when the cabin depressurisation took place and the pilots executed a rapid descent to a lower altitude.

It is important to note that for human survival, aircraft cabins are sealed and pressurised with conditioned air and oxygen. This allows aircraft to fly at higher altitudes where oxygen levels are low.

However, in rare instances, the pressurisation system fails, causing a lack of air and oxygen within the aircraft. The pressure and oxygen level in the cabin will then drop, and oxygen masks will deploy from the overhead panel.