Aer Lingus Jet Which Made Emergency Landing Had 'Botched Repairs'

A report released on Monday revealed that an Aer Lingus jet carrying 237 passengers and crew had been was forced to make an emergency landing at Shannon Airport as a result of maintenance failures by maintenance staff who were supposed to carry out "vital repairs".

The Airbus 330 was flying from Dublin to New York's JFK.

After leaving Shannon Airport for the second leg of the journey, the pilot was forced to drop to 10,000ft after cabin pressure went out of control.

The aircraft had only made it few miles over the Atlantic when it was forced to return to Shannon.

An Aircraft Accident Investigations Report after the incident revealed that, even though the plane had been checked by maintenance crews two days earlier and damage was found on the cargo hold door, repairs were not properly carried out by them.

A five-man team, including four mechanics, had never replaced the seal on the cargo hold doors. Instead, they fitted it inside-out and upside-down.

The emergency landing occurred in the middle of August 2005 and fortunately no-one was injured.

The report confirmed that the seal replacement was safety critical task but the task was botched despite the fact that the crew leader in charge of the team and two of the mechanics had 15 years experience, while the two junior mechanics had combined experience of 12 years.

Investigators did report that there were mitigating circumstances in this incident as the crew leaders attention had been split between two aircraft he had been working on.

But they said the mechanics team did not understand how the seal functioned in flight.

"This serious incident should signal the need for a review of the contractor's initial and ongoing training system," the report stated.

"The faulty seal caused pressure in the cabin to plummet."

"When an un-pressurised aircraft climbs to altitude, the effects of low barometric pressure can be quite subtle and insidious, as the body will attempt to acclimatise to the altitude change," the report continued.

"It is therefore possible that judgement may be impaired to such an extent that corrective actions associated with dealing with an emergency situation may lead to an inappropriate response which could endanger the aircraft.

"The flight crew however took all necessary precautions with pilots donning oxygen masks and the passengers being warned about a technical fault."

The AAIU also recommended that Airbus review instructions given in their Aircraft Maintenance Manual in order to make them less ambiguous, improve markings on seals in order to identify its orientation and improve training for maintenance teams.