AirAsia A320 Cabin Pressure Problem on Back-to-Back Days
By Sharon Petersen Thu Feb 29, 2024
An Airasia Indonesia A320 suffered a loss of cabin pressure on a flight from Jakarta to Denpasar. Of concern, the same incident happened on the same aircraft just the day before.
In the first incident on February 7th, The Indonesian AirAsia Airbus A320-200, registration PK-AZL was performing flight QZ-154 from Medan (Indonesia) to Bangkok Don Mueang (Thailand). According to Flightradar24 at 36,000 feet over the Gulf of Thailand the crew initiated an emergency descent to 10,000 feet due to the loss of cabin pressure.
In the second incident, the next day, the same aircraft was performing flight QZ-810 from Jakarta to Denpasar when the crew initiated an emergency descent from 35,000 feet to FL10,000 again due to the loss of cabin pressure. The aircraft continued to Denpasar for a safe landing about 45 minutes after leaving FL350.
How and why did this happen?
The issue is likely an aircraft technical problem, rather than one related to crew procedures or structural failure. Crew error is highly unlikely to cause decompression twice, and structural failure would have prevented pressurization the second time. Whilst it is wrong to speculate without all the details at first glance the cause could be a faulty outflow valve, possibly overlooked after the first incident. Despite the seriousness, crews managed the problem according to the procedures, resulting in successful flights. Engineering teams will thoroughly investigate and address the issue before the aircraft resumes operation and this is why the aircraft remains grounded.
Indonesia's KNKT rated the occurrence a serious incident and opened an investigation.
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