The news report is crap.
True that losing pressurization at 30 to 40,000 is a red alert emergency, pilots train for it. They learn to descend immediately in a manner that does not endanger structural integrity.
This was a controlled decent.
The fact that the passengers became hysterical does not make it any more than it was.
I am not qualified to fly a jet of any kind, but I did pilot my own plane for 40 years and had some very skilled friends who were.
>This was a controlled decent.<
Absolutely! Less than 1800 feet per minute. That is a normal idle thrust descent without spoilers or use of Vmo speed. It’s what you experience on every descent to landing from higher altitudes.
This was a mere pressurization control problem. There was no rapid depressurization. The plane did not nosedive. And I can assure everyone that it was not “ making multiple erratic loops before stabilizing.”
I owned my own airplanes too. I also have over 26,000 flight hours mostly in airline jets. I hate reading J School graduates write about aviation matters. I start from the position of believing very little of what they write is accurate.
EC