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Jason Tartick has worn a lot of different hats over his lifetime. He's been a corporate banker, an investor, a best-selling author, a social media star, and, famously, a contestant on Season 14 of The Bachelorette .. better go ahead and just throw "heartthrob" on that list, too.
But after a very scary flight on June 11, Tartick thinks he might have another title to add to his expansive list: survivor (and not the reality TV show kind). After detailing his unsettling experience to his audience, Tartick seemed unsure whether he was simply being overdramatic, or if he genuinely almost died!
Jason ( @jason_tartick on TikTok) insists that he loves flying and has never been one to panic about airplane issues... but this flight was different. Jason knew something was wrong when he awoke upon landing and felt sick from the extreme pressure in his ears. This was something beyond the usual depressurization earaches, and soon Jason realized that the cabin was beginning to get uncomfortably hot, too.
Related: British Airways Transatlantic Flight 'Traps' Passengers for 9 Hours After Technical Malfunction
Jason wasn't the only one worried, though. The whole flight crew , even the captain, seemed very alarmed, and they announced that they may need to exit via the emergency slides due to a "pressure issue." Jason's nerves weren't helped at all by an engineer parent sitting near him, who described the situation to his young daughter like "a vacuum sucking everything out of the air."
Fortunately, the problem was eventually resolved, and an emergency evacuation wasn't warranted, although the experience ended on a chilling note. In a previous video , Jason filmed the captain apologizing for the bizarre situation, saying that a "massive electric transfer issue," had wiped out everything in the cockpit, leaving the pilots in the dark about what was happening at the time.
"We just could not unpressurize the airplane at this point," said the captain. "So if we would've opened those doors, unknowingly, it was just too hard to tell if we would have come out."
As Jason walked away through the airport, the pilot's parting message stuck with him. "Did I... Did I almost just die?" asked Jason. "Am I being dramatic, or did I almost just die?"
What Happened to the Cabin Pressure?
This is a really weird case. We're only working off of Tartick's testimonial and a few brief clips of the captain's announcements, with no details regarding the airline, airport, aircraft, or what the specific mechanical problem was. So, I did the thing I always do when I'm confronted with a weird aircraft mystery: I asked my pilot dad .
Dad also gave the caveat that his answer was highly speculative due to the very limited information I could describe. However, he guessed that the "massive electric transfer issue" probably wiped out the pressure readouts and may have caused the system that controls cabin pressure to malfunction and disrupt the normal depressurization process during landing. Based on the symptoms Jason described and the captain's warning, it sounds like the cabin might even have become over pressurized- though again, it's hard to tell exactly what happened from one passenger's testimonial.
Whatever the case, he speculated that there was some kind of pressure differential (or Delta-P) between the cabin's air and the outside air. If the Delta-P readouts in the cockpit weren't working, the pilots couldn't tell how extreme the pressure differential was, and they wouldn't want to risk a potentially violent pressure equalization if they tried to open the doors. If you've ever seen the infamous Delta-P diving safety training video or heard of the grisly Byford Dolphin Accident , you know how deadly extreme Delta-P can be. Eventually, ground maintenance crews likely checked the pressure valves from the outside and finally cleared the crew to open the doors.
Answering Jason's Last Question
Of course, with no official explanation and very limited information, this is all just guesswork, but in such a hypothetical scenario, could Jason have "almost died?" Depending on how extreme the pressure differential was, it might have been very dangerous if they tried to open the door. However, the captain rightly chose not to make a potentially life-threatening blind guess, and from the way the situation played out, it sounds like the crew did everything by the book to ensure such a potential disaster wouldn't come about. It might have been a scary landing , but it sounds like Jason and his fellow passengers were in good hands!
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