Reply #13: you might not expect an airline to supply oxygen to you but it appears [View All]

[orleans]

it is mandatory to have on board--(why do you expect so little if you need help? they have you up in the air and people can experience various types of problems breathing--perhaps that even the passenger was unaware of having before the flight)

read a few of these posts:

http://www.airliners.net/discussions/general_aviation/read.main/3860646/1/

from the posts here it sounds like defibulators are mandatory as is supplemental bottles of oxygen

"Defibs are. As is O2. Extra (or supplemental O2) is found in POBs (portable oxygeb bottles). They are required for numerous reasons.
I smell something very fishy here and we are only getting one side here

"Roger that. Flightaware shows it as an A300, and while I don't know the specific number of portable oxygen bottles (POBs) required to be usuable, it's definitely more than two reportedly tried. As a guide, a 737 has 4 POBs, and given the larger capacity of an A300, I'd expect more than 4 being required, so there should have been others to try..

"Very fishy. At my airline not having a portable O2 container at 100% is good enough reason for not dispatching a plane. I file reports every day concerning pax that need O2, and our F/As ALWAYS administer it, no matter how minor the health issue may seem.

"Isn't that a check item for the FA's before flight? I can recall a few times flights being delayed due to the fact that the seal on the first aid kits were busted. If this turns out to be an accurate news story, this has to be up there as one of the dumbest mistakes a crew can make. Also rather cruel to deny assistance. I hate lawsuits and I hate the legal process in this country, but I will chalk this one up for a righteous lawsuit, once again if it is true.

"You will have one POB per crew member (flight attendants, that is) in the cabin, at the very least.

"I concur... I can't imagine any circumstance in which a flight attendant would refuse a passenger who clearly needed oxygen, unless it was prior to departure. As far as an empty oxygen bottle, I can't fathom that being the case (and yes there would be numerous POBs, especially on an A300).

"When I was flying, we didn't have defibs, but we damn sure had O2

"So, just rereading the full AP story, it claims there were TWO empty O2 bottles, and the defib was inoperative. There's just no way. Huge holes in this story.

"Even still, you give it till assistance arrives at the gate.