More than 30 passengers suffered pounding headaches and bleeding from nose and ears on an Indian aircraft after pilots forgot to flick a switch regulating cabin pressure on Thursday morning, officials said.
The Jet Airways flight was on its way to Jaipur from Mumbai but the flight had to return shortly after take-off.
A video shared by Darshak Hathi, who was in the aircraft showed chaos on the flight as air pressure dropped and oxygen masks came down.
“Panic situation due to a technical fault in Jet Airways flight going from Mumbai to Jaipur. Flight is returning back to Mumbai after 45 minutes. All passengers are safe including me,” he wrote on social media.
Another passenger Satish Nair tweeted a picture of himself with an oxygen mask on and complained that “the safety of passengers had been completely ignored” by the airline.
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Pilots under investigation
The pilots responsible for this have been taken off duty pending investigation, a Jet Airways spokesperson said.
India’s aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has initiated an inquiry into this incident.
Jet Airways in a statement said the Thursday morning flight had turned back “due to the loss in cabin pressure” and “regretted” the inconvenience caused to its passengers.
It said: “The B737 aircraft, with 166 guests and 5 crew landed normally in Mumbai.
“All guests were deplaned safely and taken to the terminal. First aid was administered to a few guests who complained of ear pain, bleeding nose etc.”
