"In flight, the airplane's air pressure and climate maintenance system responded to an erroneous signal sent by the control unit about an abnormal display of cabin pressure. As a result, oxygen mask panels embedded in the salon's ceiling compartment opened, allowing masks to fall out,” Augusts Zilberts, a spokesman for airBaltic, told the portal LSM.lv.
Finnish media, citing passengers on the flight, said there was initial confusion on the plane, both among passengers and crew. Passengers on the flight have told the media that they were not aware of what was happening to the plane for about five minutes. “The crew stated that we were not in danger and masks could be removed,” said a passenger who had wanted to remain anonymous. The woman also pointed out that masks hung over their heads throughout the flight.
The plane landed at Riga airport and was transported to a technical hangar after disembarking passengers, where an initial investigation has been carried out. The flight crew submitted a flight safety report immediately after the flight and following the procedure and made an appropriate entry in the airplane's on-board log, reporting a possible system failure.
“The initial investigation concluded that the cabin air pressure maintenance system was in full operation. in airBaltic's experience, this type of situation was registered for the first time and there is no indication that other airlines have encountered anything similar,” Zilberts pointed out.
Flight BT308 was conducted on a five-year-old A220-300 model plane (“YL-CSN”).
Considering that airBaltic was the first airline to fly the A220-300 aircraft of this model, as well as Latvia with 47 aircraft is the largest user of these aircraft, there may be various faults that no operator in the world has experienced yet. The incident was also reported to aircraft manufacturer Airbus for an in-depth investigation.
