There’s now a new reason to take a deep breath before going into an airplane bathroom: the emergency oxygen tanks have been disabled as an anti-terrorism measure.
Concerned that a terrorist could use lavatory oxygen to start a mid-air fire or ignite a bomb, the Federal Aviation Administration quietly ordered U.S. airline companies last month to shut down the systems in all of their 6,000 aircraft. That means any passenger in an aircraft bathroom when there is a sudden loss of cabin pressure — which officials called an extremely rare event — will not have immediate access to emergency oxygen.
In response to the directive, airlines were to disable all the oxygen generators by March 4. “In order to protect the traveling public, the FAA eliminated the problem before making the work public,” the FAA explained in a news release. “Had the FAA publicized the existence of this security vulnerability prior to airlines fixing it, thousands of planes across the U.S. and the safety of passengers could have been at risk.”
The agency added, “If there is a sudden loss of cabin pressure, pilots are already trained to guide the aircraft to a safe, breathable altitude as quickly as possible.” An FAA spokeswoman told msnbc.com that in the past 10 years, there have been only 12 incidents of loss of pressure at cruise altitudes and none in which the cabin altitude reached an unsafe level for breathing.
But an airline passenger’ rights group is not happy with the FAA’s action. “I’m in shock,” said Kate Hanni, executive director of Flyersrights.org. “We get reports of mid-air decompression events all the time. So now going to the bathroom on a commercial flight can kill you? I’m panicking just thinking about this.”
The FAA said it is working with aircraft manufacturers “to design, certify, and install a new lavatory oxygen system” on all aircraft. And a flight attendant said flight crews have access to portable oxygen bottles that could be used to assist any passengers in a lavatory.
France has implemented a similar toilet-security measure but Yves Deshayes, spokesman for the main French pilots union, told the AFP wire service that passengers could pass out or even die if they are caught in an aircraft bathroom without oxygen. “We criticize the fact that no other alternative mechanism has been established in case of depressurization,” he said.
Oxygen or not, I’ve been in aircraft lavs that could render a person unconscious in less than 30 seconds.