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According to ABC News 7, an American Airlines flight had to make an emergency landing after some interior walls split apart.
Their site has some photos of the wall splitting and the flight attendants checking it out.
According to the article:
After 45 minutes, the captain declared an emergency and told passengers he was returning to San Francisco.
“I was scared, I really was, and I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it, but a little prayer,” passenger Yvonda Little said.
A fire truck greeted the plane after a safe landing. American Airlines says the Dallas bound flight never lost cabin pressure, but they can’t explain why the cabin walls popped.
This makes me wonder how much of a serious incident this really was. Â The captain didn’t decide to return until 45 minutes after the incident, but the customers seemed pretty hysterical the entire time.
Yes, the walls splitting apart is a pretty scary scenario if you don’t know what is going on. Â But they are also not part of the overall plane structure. Â It does not mean the outside of the plane is being affected at all.
If you look at the article, the passengers were yelling that the walls were “caving in” and in the quote above, the passenger wasn’t sure she could make it.  My guess is the passengers were getting increasingly more hysterical and that was the primary reason for the emergency landing, not the actual wall.
Thoughts?
Overreaction. I’ve had a window literally fall out on to my seat upon landing on a Thai 747
Having the a window fall off at landing can be shocking for a few seconds but considering you’ve reached the ground, it’s not really that scary. Having part of the interior walls fall part at 30,000 feet is a very different story. How could passengers know the cause of this and whether the external structure would come next? Anyone in their right mind would and should have been scared. Has the airline come up with a final explanation of what caused this?
I am constantly amused and irritated by how feeble minded people react to bad situations, especially some women, what is the point of screaming shouting hollering and generally freaking out, what is it going to accomplish, just shout your mouth relax and enjoy your last few moments or you land safely the end. jeeeez
To clarify — I was on that flight and no one yelled. There was no one running up and down the aisle to get a flight attendant to do something. Some people pressed their call button but FAs told everyone to stop calling them and explained the problem (they just said it was cabin pressure problem, didn’t mention anything about the wall). I didn’t feel a sense of panic in the cabin. The testimony of that guy that’s been rewritten in all articles about this is highly exaggerated.
Lyn, would you mind emailing me at Jeanne at HeelsFirstTravel.com in regards to that flight? I’d love to get more of your take on it!