FLIGHT FROM HELL

Passenger on Plunging Boeing Wrote Farewell Letter to Husband

Oxygen masks descended during the incident before the plane made an emergency landing.

A Boeing plane experienced a malfunction and rapidly descended during a flight from Shanghai, China, to Tokyo, Japan. The Japan Airlines flight, operated by budget carrier Spring Airlines, was forced into an emergency landing in Osaka on Monday night after the pilots contacted air traffic controllers about an alert relating to an issue with the aircraft’s pressurization system. Oxygen masks were deployed during the incident, with passengers sharing details of the harrowing experience online. “My legs are still shaking. When you face life or death, everything else feels trivial,” one passenger wrote, according to the South China Morning Post. Another said they’d written a farewell note to their husband as the plane descended, Hong Kong newspaper The Standard reports. Another social media user described the descent as extreme, saying the “plane started plummeting violently” at about 7 p.m. local time. None of the 191 passengers and crew on board the Boeing 737-800 were injured, according to reports. Japan Airlines told the Daily Beast it sincerely regrets the “concern caused to our passengers and stakeholders due to this event,” and that it is “actively cooperating with authorities and will implement measures to prevent similar occurrences in the future.”