Description

On 27 May 2008 an Airbus A319-100 being operated by Germanwings on a scheduled passenger flight from Dublin to Cologne was 30nm east of Dublin and passing FL100 in the climb in unrecorded daylight flight conditions when the Purser advised the flight crew by intercom that “something was wrong”, that almost all the passengers had fallen asleep, and that at least one of the cabin crew seated nearby was “unresponsive”. Following a review of this information and a check of the ECAM pressurisation page which showed no warnings or failures, a decision was taken to don oxygen masks and the aircraft returned uneventfully to Dublin without any further adverse effects on the 125 occupants. A MAYDAY was declared during the diversion.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the Irish AAIU with assistance from the German Accident Investigation Board (Bundesstelle für Flugunfalluntersuchung (Germany) (BFU)). It was noted that the aircraft had only recently been delivered new from the manufacturer and had only been in service for six weeks prior to the investigated event. It was also noted that the flight had been the fourth sector of a morning duty for the complete crew in the same aircraft.

Following the flight, none of the passengers requested medical intervention or expressed concern in that respect and comprehensive tests on the crew, who all reported having felt slightly unwell or experienced other abnormal symptoms including drowsiness and slight dizziness during the flight, were negative. The symptoms reported by the crew had disappeared quickly after they went onto oxygen. Consequently, none of them requested medical attention when this was offered.