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Passengers were left scrambling for oxygen masks as a plane to Heathrow plummeted thousands of feet in seconds due to a technical fault, it was claimed today.
Former BAE Systems worker Kenneth Blake, 62, said he was travelling on Gulf Air flight GF003 from Bahrain when the captain told passengers and crew the aircraft had developed a fault and an emergency descent was necessary.
Oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling, but Mr Blake said some passengers were forced to move to other seats after some of the masks did not work or deploy correctly.
The aircraft landed at Heathrow 40 minutes later and nobody was injured during the ordeal last Sunday.
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Technicians rushed to the plane after it docked and were visibly working on the aircraft as passengers made their way into the terminal, explained Mr Blake.
Mr Blake, a former senior electrical inspector for BAE, was returning from a two-week trip to Thailand with his wife when he said the incident unfolded.
He told the Standard: “I felt my ears popping and the air brakes were up on the wing and then the oxygen masks dropped down.
“The captain came on the tannoy and said we had an emergency decompression and had to do an emergency descent.
“The scary thing for everybody [was] half the masks didn’t come down and some of the ones that did didn’t work anyway.
“Fortunately we could still breathe in the cabin but if a window had gone out, people would have died.”
Mr Blake, who now works as a security guard at a job centre in Bournemouth, said the flight was not full so passengers, including many army personnel, were able to move to other seats and use other oxygen masks.
He said: “I don’t know how often they are doing testing of the emergency oxygen but I was definitely concerned by the amount that didn’t automatically come down and were not operating properly.
“I don’t understand how an aircraft can be allowed to fly with these issues. I can’t see how that was allowed out of dispatch.”
The aircraft was able to take off, land and fly safely.
Mr Blake said he would not fly with the airline again and will write a letter of complaint to Gulf Air.
The Standard has made repeated attempts to contact a Gulf Air representative for comment on Mr Blake's claims.
The airline said in a statement after the incident: "Gulf Air can confirm that flight GF003, an Airbus 330, flying from Bahrain to London on 13 December, experienced technical issues that resulted in the airline's experienced cockpit crew successfully executing an emergency descent and safely landing at Heathrow International.
"The aircraft, carrying 89 passengers, landed without incident and all passengers disembarked safely.
"The safety, protection and comfort of our passengers and employees are of utmost importance and Gulf Air crew are trained to handle such incidents as evidenced by the level of professionalism shown by both the pilots & cabin crew as well as all of our teams on the ground."
Gulf Air is Bahrain's largest airline and flys to 23 countries around Africa, Asia and Europe.
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