If the regulating valves fail or if the cabin structure is breached (by a failure of a door or window for example) then the pressure in the cabin would suddenly drop to match the outside air pressure.
Yet in 1972, an American Airlines DC-10 suffered a sudden loss of cabin pressure at 12, 000ft and part of the cabin floor collapsed into the cargo hold.
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Also consider long-acting decongestant sprays or tablets, which help keep blocked nasal passages open when cabin pressure changes during take-off and landing. (Decongestant can be overly drying in airplane cabin air so consider saline solution, too).
The 787 is made from light and strong composite materials that allow higher cabin pressure and humidity, adding to passengers' comfort.
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But aviation expert Miles O'Brien told CNN the circumstances point toward a possible loss of cabin pressure in the eight-seat, propeller-driven aircraft.
"The cabin pressure of being at 35, 000 feet in the air means you lose about 10% of your taste buds, " he says.
The cabin pressure warning leaves questions about when it sounded, whether the two pilots responded properly or were incapacitated by a rapid decompression.
The aircraft's computer system did send about four minutes of automated messages indicating a loss of cabin pressure and an electrical failure, officials have said.
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In 1999, a private jet carrying golfer Payne Stewart and five others crashed after apparently losing cabin pressure "for undetermined reasons" after takeoff from Florida, the National Transportation Safety Board found.
Radio 4's comedy series Cabin Pressure, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch and Roger Allam, has been nominated for best radio programme along with James Joyce's Ulysses, a Radio 4 dramatisation to mark Bloomsday, the day in June when the book's events take place.
The strength of the high-tech material allows airlines to raise cabin air pressure and increase humidity, which should make passengers more comfortable on long flights.
There were two brief delays in the countdown, one caused by a cabin-pressure sensor that had to be reset, the other by a private plane that wandered into Cape Canaveral airspace and had to be shooed out.
The failure caused the cabin to lose pressure instantly and the oxygen masks to deploy.
This air has its temperature and pressure corrected before being fed into the cabin.
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