A Jet Airways spokesperson said the flight 9W 234 returned to Amsterdam due to a “suspected tail scrape during take-off”.
A day after a Jet Airways flight returned to Mumbai to make an emergency landing after drop in cabin pressure resulted in at least 30 passengers suffering from nose bleed and pain, one of the injured continued to cough blood and suffer ear and headache on Friday. This was despite he being discharged from the hospital.
“His head and ears are paining constantly. We plan to make him undergo a CT scan and an MRI of brain. The low cabin pressure affected him a lot as he was travelling from Hong Kong and was in transit for over 24 hours without getting any sleep,” said Vikram Kala, the brother of passenger Ankur Kala (38).
“We now plan to register a police complaint against Jet Airways for negligence,” he added.
Also read | Express Explained: Why cabin pressure matters
Ankur had arrived in Mumbai on Thursday from Hong Kong, where he participated in a jewellery exhibition. He took the onward flight to Jaipur at 6.15 am.
Within 20 minutes, he has claimed, oxygen masks had dropped down from the overhead compartment and the cabin pressure dropped. Kala was one of the five injured who were rushed to Nanavati hospital on Thursday after his nose started bleeding in the oxygen mask.
Twenty-five others, who suffered from nose and ear bleeding, were taken to Jaipur on the next flight.
The loss of pressure was due to a manual glitch after the cabin crew did not put the bleed switch on to normalise pressure at higher altitude. Those onboard suffered barotrauma, a condition in which the ear pressure is different from the outside air pressure. “It will take a few days for the situation to normalise for the patients. There was immense pressure on their ear drums, which we term as Baro-otitis Media. This led to bleeding. But none of them are critical,” said ENT surgeon Dr Amol Patil, who treated the five in Nanavati hospital.
Vashi resident Satish Nair, who was also in the flight, said he is awaiting the probe report. “I do not know how much compensation we can receive. However, I plan to wait for the preliminary probe report and then act on it.” Nair has complained of lack of medical facilities at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport and the failure of the airline to assist injured passengers.
Meanwhile, following Thursday’s incident, passengers who have booked with the airline are a concerned lot.
Anil Sharma, a writer, who is scheduled to travel on September 29 with his family from Jaipur to Mumbai, said: “I am bit concerned because I am travelling with my family. What should I do, should I cancel my ticket? I will also lose money if I cancel tickets.”
Sharma has spent Rs 40,000 on booking flight tickets with Jet Airways.
His mother, aged 88, suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Sharma’s doctor has suggested they carry a nebuliser just in case of any change in cabin pressure. “The doctor said she will be the first one to be affected if something like this happens.”
Bangalore-based Sandhya, a sales executive, who flew by Jet Airways on Friday from Chennai to Bangalore, is a frequent flyer. “What happened on Thursday was carelessness. It was not a technical snag. This thought is concerning,” she said.
Sandhya added that for a few months, she will avoid booking flights with the airline, which she uses to visit Dhaka, Hyderabad and Chennai.
A senior Jet Airways official said that passengers, who have suffered injuries, will be duly compensated after the probe report comes out.