Cabin Pressure Worries: United Airlines Flight Drops 28,000 Feet in 10 Minutes

The flight, which carried 270 passengers, landed safely, however concerns remain regarding the recent increase in number of aviation incidents.

A United Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft waits to take off at Beijing airport on July 25, 2018. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

The flight, which carried 270 passengers, landed safely, however, concerns remain regarding the recent increase in the number of aviation incidents.

A United Airlines flight from the Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey, heading for Rome, had to turn back after rapidly falling thousands of feet midair.

Data from airline tracking site FlightAware show that the flight took off from Newark at 09:20 p.m. EDT Wednesday. Between 10:07 p.m. and 10:17 p.m., the airline rapidly descended from 37,000 to 8,875 feet, a plunge of 28,125 feet over a roughly 10-minute period. It returned back to the Newark airport by 12:27 a.m. The flight came back “to address a possible loss of cabin pressure,” a United Airlines spokesperson told Fox News. “The flight landed safely, and there was never any loss of cabin pressure.”

A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also confirmed to the outlet that the plane had returned due to a “pressurization issue.”

The aircraft, which had 270 passengers and 14 crew members, was originally headed to the Rome–Fiumicino International Airport before the incident. After the plane landed, the passengers were taken to Rome on a different flight.

Pilots typically make a quick descent of their aircraft to lower altitudes in case there is a concern about the plane’s pressurization.

At heights of 37,000 feet, temperatures drop to -60 degrees Celsius (-76 degrees Fahrenheit), and people face difficulty breathing with the air being thin. As such, planes have a pressurization system to ensure that people inside the craft can breathe normally.

As a plane climbs to the skies from the runway, onboard computers regulate the amount of air entering the cabin to ensure that an optimum equilibrium is maintained.

If the pressurization system fails, a pilot will make an emergency descent, lowering the altitude within a short period of time until it is safe for people inside the cabin to breathe.

An American Airlines plane lands on a runway near a parked JetBlue plane at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on July 16, 2020. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Last month, an American Airlines flight from North Carolina that was headed toward Florida descended almost 15,000 feet in just three minutes due to concerns about pressurization. Over a seven-minute period, the plane fell from 30,000 feet to just over 10,000 feet.

Numerous airline issues have been cropping up lately. Last week, United Airlines had to ground several flights briefly and halt departures nationwide following a software update which triggered a glitch, causing widespread slowdown in the technology systems.

The incident delayed more than 350 United Airlines flights on Sept. 5, which was 13 percent of the carrier’s schedule for the day.

The flight delays led Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to state that his department “will make sure UA (United Airlines) meets its obligations to affected passengers.”

Aviation Safety in Focus

The rapid descent of United Airlines’ flight comes as GOP lawmakers have placed Mr. Buttigieg under scrutiny after a string of aviation safety incidents. In a Sept. 5 letter to the Transportation Secretary, the lawmakers asked for information related to “a series of aviation and rail safety failures” that have recently taken place across the country.

One of the aviation safety incidents listed in the letter was about a plane plunging within 800 feet of the Pacific Ocean in December after taking off from Maui, Hawaii.

“Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data indicate that there were 1,730 runway incursions in all of 2022 while there have already been 1,539 this year as of July 24, 2023,” the letter said.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg participates in a SiriusXM and GU Politics Townhall event, hosted by Julie Mason of SiriusXM and Mo Elleithee of GU Politics, on infrastructure at Georgetown University in Washington on Oct. 11, 2022. Paul Morigi/Getty Images for SiriusXM

“The Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) has more than 86 new unresolved recommendations since President Biden took office. According to the OIG (Office of the Inspector General), a recommendation is ‘unresolved’ if ‘agency management disagrees with the recommendation or the OIG disagrees with the agency’s proposed corrective actions.’”

“It appears from the OIG’s catalog of long overdue and unresolved recommendations that DOT’s leadership is not prioritizing Americans’ safety on air, land, and sea,” the letter said.

In late June, multiple flights across the United States were delayed or canceled due to weather. At the time, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby blamed the FAA for the issue, citing staffing shortages at air traffic control centers.

In January, all U.S. flight departures were halted briefly by the FAA after the failure of a system used to alert pilots about safety hazards. The FAA placed the blame on a contractor, which it said had accidentally deleted some files while synchronizing the alert system and its backup.

In a recent interview with Fox News, Capt. Dennis Tajer, communications chair and spokesperson for American Airlines pilots labor union Allied Pilots Association, said that America’s air travel system is “under immense pressure.”

Individuals who are “less experienced” and “less seasoned” are now entering the industry, he said. Airline management teams are now under pressure to “fly as many airplanes, as much as possible.”