Passengers on an overnight flight from Los Angeles to Auckland were shaken up when they awoke to oxygen masks dropping from the cabin ceiling.
Flight NZ 5 departed LAX on August 17 and arrived at AKL August 19, 2022 (international date line crossing loses one day en route) Lights flashed on, masks dropped above passengers’ heads and an automated recording declared: “This is an emergency. This is an emergency. Put on your mask”.
The Air New Zealand Boeing 777-300, registration ZK-OKQ LAX to Auckland, was enroute at FL340 over the Pacific Ocean about 3 hours prior to arrival when this inadvertent emergency activation occurred.
An Air NZ spokeswoman confirmed there had been an incident on this morning’s flight, adding that the captain and inflight services manager had kept passengers informed with an announcement coming about two minutes after masks were deployed.
“We are also in the process of getting in touch with customers on the flight to apologise for the disruption.”
A statement from the airline’s chief operational integrity and safety officer Captain David Morgan said oxygen masks were automatically deployed as the aircraft descended from 34,000 feet to 27,000 feet to avoid forecast turbulence.
“During this descent an automated emergency warning activated requesting customers put on their oxygen masks,” Morgan said.
“We are sorry for the alarming wakeup call on this flight. This was not an emergency situation and the oxygen masks were not required. While our cabin crew and pilots worked quickly to reassure everyone on board, we know it was distressing for our customers.”
Engineers were inspecting the cabin monitoring system of the aircraft this morning to find the cause of the fault, and it would be fixed before the next flight.
Frequent flyer Morgan Kelly said the Air New Zealand flight over the Pacific had been “totally uneventful” until the “insane” wake-up call. “All the flight attendants have to snap into it as if it was an emergency. Everybody was so shocked, including them – it was quite crazy,” she told reporters.