according to the washington post, a Continintal airlines jet from Houston to DC was
fored to make an emergency descent and landing at Louis Armstrong International
in New Orleans after losing Pressure. The pressure loss was severe enough that
the Oxygen system was deployed
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
On Board was Republican candidate Rep Ron Paul, Rep Nick Lampson
,,,,Also on the flight were Reps. Paul, Ted Poe, John Carter, Solomon P. Ortiz, Ciro Rodriguez, and Henry Cuellar, Kincaid said.
Now, Lampson and Paul are both favorites of the Netroots, although of different persuasions,
but the Kicker?
The group was trying to make a vote on the Aviation Safety Enhancement Act
By the way, In Flight depressurization is awful rare.
i've only met one person who was on a flight that this happened to.
Said it was pretty amazing.
Just woof, and the cabin filled with snow, and while they made
the rapid descent, it was really, really cold
http://cat.inist.fr/...
Introduction: Aircraft cabin depressurization is a rare event but one which demands attention because of the grave potential for aircrew incapacity in flight. The purpose of the current study was to determine rates of depressurization incidents for U.S. military aircraft, to examine their causes, and to evaluate the medical importance of these incidents. Methods: The U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force safety center databases were searched for decompression incidents during FY1981-FY2003. A total of 1055 incidents were analyzed as to the cause, speed of onset, and adverse health effects (hypoxia, barotrauma, DCS, or any combination of these). The causes of each incident were identified and classified by aircraft type. Results: The number of incidents per airframe varied from 1 (in many airframes) to 276 in the T-38. The number of total hours flown ranged from 16,332 in the T-6 to 8,101,607 in the C-130. The number of sorties flown ranged from 8800 in the B-2 to 3,543,061 in the C-130. Of 35 common airframes, 30 showed rates between 0 and 20 incidents per million flying hours. Depressurization was "slow" in 83% of incidents. Of the 1055 incidents, only 350 (33.2%) involved adverse health effects. Hypoxia occurred in 221 incidents, DCS in 83, and barotrauma in 71. Only 4 (0.4%) resulted in a fatality. Of the 199 incidents involving hypoxia, 12 (6%) occurred below 4267 m (14,000 ft). Conclusion: Most reported military aircraft depressurization incidents are slow and do not affect aircrew health. Rates have decreased dramatically since the 1980s. Still, this study lends support to continuing hypobaric chamber training for military pilots.
if you lok at this, it's about 1:300,000 for military aircraft.
i would expect it to be 10 times less for civilian aircraft