Passengers onboard a Korean Air Boeing 737MAX suffered nose bleeds and ear pain after the aircraft experienced pressurization problems around 50 minutes after departure from Seoul Incheon Airport on Saturday evening.
The four-year-old Boeing 737MAX-8 was bound for Taichung in Taiwan, but the pilots were forced to enter a holding pattern over the South Korean island of Jeju as they tried to troubleshoot the issue before making a return to Seoul.
As the pressure in the cabin suddenly dropped, at least two of the passengers suffered nosebleeds, while 15 complained of severe ear pain, and another person had to be seen by emergency medical responders due to pain caused by the drop in pressure.
Video taken by a passenger onboard flight KE189 showed everyone wearing oxygen masks that had automatically dropped from the ceiling as the pilots quickly descended from the cruising altitude of more than 30,000 feet to 8,000 feet before returning to Seoul.
The cause of the pressurization problem has not yet been established, but an official from South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport confirmed that the pilots had conducted a rapid descent due to oxygen issues inside the cabin after an ‘overpressure system’ warning was observed in the flight deck.
There are a variety of reasons why an aircraft might suffer pressurization issues, which range from a major structural issue like the mid-cabin exit door blowout on Alaska Airlines Flight 1283 on January 26 to a faulty door seal that could prevent the aircraft from pressurizing correctly.
There could also have been a fault with the pressurization system, such as a control valve malfunction, sensor failure, or even a problem with the built-in software designed to regulate the pressure inside the cabin.
16 people onboard Korean Air KE18 had to be transported to the hospital and two others elected to go to the hospital at a later date.
