Panic as cabin pressure drops on AirAsia flight to Australia
SECC set to publish new bond booklet
PASSENGERS recounted their panic yesterday after a sudden loss of pressure on their AirAsia flight caused oxygen masks to drop from the ceiling and sent their plane into a steep drop.
AirAsia said the Airbus A320, carrying 151 people, suffered a “technical issue”, with Australian media reporting the aircraft, en route to Indonesia, had dropped from 32,000 feet (10,000 metres) to 10,000 feet 25 minutes after take-off.
Video circulating online shows distressed passengers wearing oxygen masks with an alarm blaring and cabin crew calling for people to assume the brace position.
“I picked up my phone and sent a text message to my family, just hoping that they would get it,” one tearful passenger named Leah told Channel Nine television.
“We were all pretty much saying goodbye to each other. It was really upsetting.”
Another holidaymaker said not knowing what was going on heightened fears.
“We didn’t know what was happening because all the voice recordings on the plane were in every language but English,” she said.
AirAsia apologised for the scare on Sunday’s Perth to Bali flight, blaming a “technical issue” without elaborating on the cause.
“The safety of passengers and crew is our priority,” the budget airline said in a state- ment. “AirAsia apologises to passengers for any inconvenience caused.”
Several flights have been forced back to Australia in recent months, including an AirAsia Gold Coast to Kuala Lumpur service in July that the carrier said was involved in a suspected bird strike.
AirAsia X chief Benyamin Ismail released a statement on behalf of the budget carrier following July’s incident saying the company was, “following all regulatory guidelines to ensure the safety and well-being of guests”.
A Qantas flight that was en route to Dallas returned to Sydney in August after the wing flaps could not be retracted, while a Johannesburg-bound plane turned back to Sydney on the same day when a crack in the windscreen was discovered.
The airline suffered its first fatal incident in December 2014, when AirAsia Flight QZ8501 crashed in stormy weather off Indonesia killing all 162 people on board. That followed two Malaysia Airlines tragedies in the same year which left hundreds dead, raising concerns among some travellers about the safety of the country’s carriers. THE Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia (SECC) announced yesterday that it will publish a new updated Cambodia Bond Market Guide by the end of this year, with the hopes that it will raise public awareness for the new financial tool that received a formal regulatory framework in August.
The announcement came as members of the SECC met with experts from the Asia Development Bank yesterday for a workshop meant to prepare Cambodian companies for the first issuance of a corporate bond.
Sok Dara, deputy director of SECC, said that the Cambodia Bond Market Guide 2017 will be an important asset for firms and investors to learn about the financial tool. The guidebook will focus on teaching companies how to monitor the market as well as outlining the terms and conditions for bond issuance.
“Stakeholders in the market can take this guidebook and use it as a fundamental tool that will pave the way for investors, companies and other parties to learn more about this new market mechanism,” he said, adding that the document, once completed, will be publicly available on the SECC website.
Additionally, the SECC announced that Cambodia will host the 27th Asean + 3 Bond Market Forum early next year. The forum is expected to boost the prospects Cambodian companies to issue corporate bonds and introduce investors to the Kingdom’s nascent stock exchange.