Originally Posted by
AKpilot
Yesterday a AA Airbus flight diverted to LAX with smoke / fumes in the cabin. The ATC tape played on the news has the pilot saying the they had the O2 masks dropped in the pax cabin. I have heard of other similar situations recently. I called my UA airbus captain friend and asked if there was a procedure for deploying masks for smoke or fumes. He said there is no procedure. There is none for the B-737 that I fly. I had a simulator scenario one year that addressed this very issue. PAX O2 masks are for decompression ONLY. The masks are not designed for smoke mitigation. Any thoughts on this? Are there any airlines that have a procedure to deploy PAX O2 masks outside of a decompression event? AA guys?
The masks are for cabin depressurization. Now can they provide some assistance during smoke/fumes? Well that's up to the big man in the left seat. I guess I don't see the harm in giving them something, though I don't think that was the original intent based on the FCOM. Just my 2 cents...Though I believe the intent is to get rid of the smoke/fumes. I don't see any PAX OX deploy in the QRH for any smoke/fumes....so it obviously would be outside of procedure to do that.