Ryanair Emergency Landing Puts 16 in Hospital

Sixteen Ryanair passengers were taken to hospital today after a sudden loss of cabin pressure forced a flight to make an unscheduled landing.

Flight FR9336 was flying from Bristol to Barcelona last night when it was diverted to Limoges International airport, in France, as a "safety precaution", the budget airline said.

The Arctic explorer Pen Hadow and his wife, Mary, and their son and daughter were among the 168 passengers. He said passengers were terrified as the aircraft plummeted and oxygen masks dropped down.

"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," Hadow 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."

Hadow, who became the first man to walk solo and unsupported from the northern coast of Canada to the North Pole in 2003, said a number of oxygen masks inside the cabin failed to inflate.

"Mine wasn't filling up with oxygen and neither was my son's," he said. "He was hyperventilating."

His son was one of those taken to hospital after the incident.

"From where I was sitting I could see about 20 masks and only a few of them were inflating," Hadow said. "It was extremely variable as to who got oxygen in their masks, and the cabin crew didn't seem to know what to do."

The Ryanair chief executive, Michael O'Leary, insisted correct procedures were followed, although no announcement was made when the plane began to lose altitude, and that the oxygen masks worked correctly.

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today program: "The oxygen masks were working, the correct safety procedures were followed."

Defending the crew's actions, he said 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."

A Ryanair spokeswoman said: "Ryanair confirms that the FR9336 from Bristol airport to Barcelona Girona airport on the evening of August 25 experienced an in flight depressurisation incident which caused the oxygen masks on board to deploy … All 168 passengers disembarked safely upon landing. A total of 16 passengers, together with five accompanying family members have transferred, at their request, to a local hospital complaining of earache."

The spokeswoman said a replacement aircraft would take passengers on to Spain this morning and a coach would take those who preferred not to fly. The airline said it was sending an engineer to Limoges to try to determine what caused the loss of pressure.