AirAsia Indonesia has issued a statement apologizing for “any inconvenience caused” by a flight from Australia to Bali on Sunday morning that plummeted a reported 20,0000 feet after just 25 minutes in the air.
QZ535 from Perth to Bali dropped down to two thirds of its elevation, when a technical issued caused the plane to suddenly lose cabin pressure, terrifying the plane’s 145 passengers—and crew.
Video taken during the shaky flight shows that masks dropped down in the cabin and flight attendants yelled at passengers to get down into the “brace” position.
“The safety of our guests is our utmost priority,” the airline said in a statement.
“AirAsia Indonesia apologizes for any inconvenience caused.”
Passengers say that the terrifying ride on QZ535, plus the crew’s “panicked” reaction to the mid-air emergency—including a flight attendant running down the aisle without explanation—had them fearing for their lives.
“I actually picked up my phone and sent a text message to my family, just hoping that they would get it. We were all pretty much saying goodbye to each other. It was really upsetting,” Leah, a passenger on the flight, told Australia’s 9 News.
“One of the stewardesses started running down the aisle and we thought, ‘why is she running?’ And then the masks fell down and everybody started panicking. Nobody told us what was going on,” she said.
Another of the flight’s passengers, Clare Askew told reporters in Perth that the flight crew’s panic spread to passengers.
“The panic was escalated because of the behavior of staff who were screaming, looked tearful and shocked.
“Now, I get it, but we looked to them for reassurance and we didn’t get any, we were more worried because of how panicked they were.”
Askew added that people did put on the masks that dropped down “but no oxygen came through.”
While the crew sure seems to have failed to keep passengers calm, silence from the cockpit didn’t help alleviate fears either.
“We never heard from the captain ’til he said we’re going to turn around,” another unidentified passenger told 7News cameras.
After the 20,000 foot drop, the flight turned around and made it safely back to Perth and was rescheduled. Most, but not all, of the passengers boarded the rescheduled flight.
The airline says it has engineers examining the aircraft to determine what exactly went wrong.
This isn’t AirAsia’s only recent “shake-up.” The budget airline had to turn back a flight to Malaysia from Perth in June, with one passenger saying that the plane was “shaking like a washing machine”.
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