Loses altitude – but no damage or injuries reported
The ‘official story’ today about a TAP Airbus 320 forced to make an emergency landing at Porto’s Francisco Sá Carneiro airport is that the aircraft suffered “a loss of pressure inside (…) and loss of altitude”.
Early reports did not specify what kind of plane was involved – this detail came later.
It is still unclear how many passengers were onboard.
According to Jornal de Notícias, the TAP Airbus 320 was en-route from Lisbon to Oslo (Norway). It left Lisbon at 1.10pm, suffering a “loss of pressure inside the aircraft and loss of altitude” at 2.07pm, by which time (according to FlightRadar24) it was almost clear of the Iberian Peninsula.
An alert level 1 was actioned at Porto airport while the plane doubled-back.
According to a source at Civil Protection, the plane “managed to land safely, without any damage or injuries”.
The way the story has been presented does not sound like this is another incident of an aircraft suddenly ‘losing altitude’ due to increasing incidences of air turbulence – but the details are still sketchy at this point.
Jornal de Notícias concludes that “depressurisation of an aircraft is a rare occurrence and can happen as a result of a leak in a window or door, or due to structural damage to the aircraft or a fault in the pressurisation system“.
Most important is the fact that there was ‘no damage or injuries’. Other recent incidences of planes suffering losses of altitude did indeed see injuries, and a great deal of panic.
Source material: LUSA/ Jornal de Notícias
