In the case you describe, it appears there was sufficient time &
opportunity for additional query/comment.
.......snip.........
is the meaning of thumb down, something bad or something fatal. About 5
mins later
of the capt. command and just before the cabin crew would like to take a
seat, all
the masks dropped and that was the time they were aware of decompression
.........snip......
If the flight crew waited as long as 5 minutes before telling the
cabin crew to take their seats, it indicates to me that there was
likely sufficient time to communicate much more clearly with the
cabin crewmembers as to the nature of the abnormal/emergency that was
in progress.
After the above incident, those cabin crew reported the communication
between
flight deck and cabin was not enough. They claimed that only one very
short but
not informative command "Cabin crew, prepare for emer. ?????? (might be
descent)"
which was not taught in the cabin crew safety training. I wondered what
would the
other airline's pilots normally do in a similar case in which
decompression is
known in advance and does not occur suddenly. In addition, a
controllable descent
could be performed by the pilots. Will the pilots normally give some
detailed
information to cabin staff or just a command. Unless the command is
universally
understood or being taught in the training otherwise I thought a
physical approach
between flight deck and cabin staff is necessary for sharing critical
information.
I would hope that this airline has evaluated the crew's actions and
taken appropriate steps to clarify and correct their company's
operations procedures & training program(s) to address this apparent
deficiency in crew communication during high-workload periods of
flight.
.
.
John W. Williams
http://www.flash.net/~jwwda20
ICQ# 3543301
PGP Public Key- http://www.flash.net/~jwwda20/pgp.html