False emergency declared on Air NZ flight from LA to Auckland

Air New Zealand passengers on a flight from Los Angeles to Auckland overnight had an “alarming wakeup call” when a fault caused an emergency warning to go off and oxygen masks to drop down. The airline has confirmed the event was “not an emergency situation”, and was wrongly triggered when the Boeing 777-300 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,” said Captain David Morgan, Air New Zealand’s chief operational integrity and safety officer. “We are sorry for the alarming wakeup call on this flight. This was not an emergency situation and the oxygen masks were not required.”<br/>Morgan said while cabin crew and pilots worked quickly to reassure those onboard, the airline recognised it was a “distressing” event. Engineers were inspecting the cabin monitoring system of the aircraft to determine the cause of the fault, so it could be rectified before the next flight. The aircraft, designated ZK-OKQ, was grounded in June 2020 due to the pandemic. It returned to service in February, after undergoing maintenance in Auckland.<br/>