Orlando-bound plane turns around after damaged window mishap, AAIB says: 'Loud enough to damage your hearing'
Florida-bound flight drops 20,000 feet
A flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, into Gainesville dropped over 15,000 feet in the span of about 3 minutes, according to flight records. American Airlines Flight 5916 was on its way into Florida when the crew reported a possible pressurization issue, a spokesperson from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told FOX 35 News. The plane landed safely at the Gainesville Regional Airport shortly before 5 p.m.
LONDON - A plane on its way from London to Orlando was turned around just a few minutes after takeoff when a crew member noticed that one of the cabin windows was open, damaged and flapping in the wind, according to an investigative report from the United Kingdom's aviation authority.
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch, the UK's agency for investigating civil aircraft incidents, published a report on Nov. 3 regarding the incident that happened on Oct. 4 after taking off from London Stansted Airport. The flight was scheduled to leave on a multi-day charter away from base, with the flight to Orlando being the first leg of the trip.
The plane was carrying 11 crew members and nine passengers, who were all employees of the tour operator or aircraft operating company, according to the AAIB. The Airbus A321 was only in the air for 36 minutes after the loadmaster reported a louder-than-usual noise during the flight.
Photo: Air Accidents Investigation Branch
Passengers said the cabin seemed "noisier and colder than they were used to," so the loadmaster walked toward the back of the plane to check it out, the report said. That's when he noticed it was louder near a cabin window on the left side of the plane with a window seal that was "flapping in the airflow" and the windowpane "appeared to have slipped down."
The cabin noise was "loud enough to damage your hearing," the crew member said, according to the report.
The flight reached an altitude of about 14,500 feet.
The flight crew determined that the pressure in the plane was "operating normally," but they agreed to return to London Stansted Airport after inspecting the window, the report said. Upon landing, passengers got off the plane normally and the crew began to inspect the plane.
During the flight, the crew was only alerted to an issue with one of the windowpanes, but it was revealed that two cabin windowpanes were missing, a third was dislodged and a fourth was protruding from the side of the plane, according to the report.
Photo: Air Accidents Investigation Branch
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The AAIB determined the cause of the damage to the four adjacent windows came from a crew using the plane during filming the day before the scheduled flight from London to Orlando. External lights were being used to shine through the cabin windows to give the illusion of a sunrise, but the lights were on for about five hours, causing "thermal damage and distortion because of elevated temperatures," the report said.
Photo: Air Accidents Investigation Branch
"A different level of damage by the same means might have resulted in more serious consequences, especially if window integrity was lost at higher differential pressure," the report said.
All in all, there were no pressurization warnings recorded during the flight, but the AAIB is still working to correct the issue.
Photo: Air Accidents Investigation Branch
"The AAIB investigation continues with the support of the BEA (the French aviation safety investigation authority), the aircraft manufacturer, and the aircraft operator to understand how a similar occurrence can be prevented from occurring again," the report said.