Actors' plane stops in El Paso after loss of cabin pressure

El Paso Times | Sunday, March 9, 2003 | Adriana M. Chávez

[FryingPan101]

A private plane chartered by a few Hollywood actors made an unexpected landing in El Paso last week.

According to the Knight Ridder News Service, after a Mardi Gras weekend in New Orleans, "That '70s Show" co-stars Ashton Kutcher, Wilmer Valderrama and Danny Masterson, along with Colin Hanks -- son of Tom Hanks -- and "7th Heaven" stars Geoff and George Stults, were flying back to Los Angeles when the cabin pressure in the plane dropped.

Liz Bellegarde, spokeswoman for El Paso International Airport, said Saturday that there were no reports of a charter plane making an emergency landing at the airport last week. Officials at the West Texas Airport said they also weren't aware of any recent emergency landings at their runways.

Officials at the Santa Teresa Airport could not be reached for comment Saturday evening.

According to the Knight Ridder report, the actors were all sleeping when, unexpectedly, a potato-chip bag exploded and oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling as the cabin rapidly lost pressure.

Kutcher tried to wake up the rest of the group. Masterson, however, had passed out, and Kutcher began administering CPR on his co-star. Hanks also began losing consciousness.

The group reportedly had been at a Mardi Gras party March 1 in South Padre Island.

No one was injured, and the group eventually resumed the trip back to L.A.

[Archangelsk]

Gee, not one word about the pilots who did exactly what they were supposed to do to prevent a hypoxia disaster. I'm sure Payne Stewart is looking down from wherever he is and congratulating the flight crew.

[WIladyconservative]

Thank heavens for Kelso's quick thinking . . . .

[Arthur McGowan]

"That 70's Show" should be called "That Fornication Show." It is about nothing else.

[twntaipan]

I know lots of Texans go home that way from South Padre--guess the Hollyweird set can't stand up to the Texans, huh?

[Hawkeye's Girl]

Yeah, good thing he's smarter than his character.

Although "That 70s Show" is only so-so as far as TV goes, I'm glad that everyone is okay.

[leadpenny]

My guess is that the pilots did not declare and emergency and that they will be answering some questions from FAA officials real soon.

The exploding potato chip bag makes me think there should be some kind of early warning alarm, like that, to prevent the Paine Stewart type tragedy. A rapid decompression gets everyone's attention. It's the slow leak that can be insidious.

[uncbob]

Good thing they weren't in those gas guzzling SUVs

[WIladyconservative]

I've only recently come to watch the show (it's in reruns 5 nights a week here). I think the thing I enjoy about it is that the characters are the same age (in the same state!)at the same time as my husband and I were in the 70's. It brings back a lot of fun memories for us, but we also see the glaring errors as they try to depict the 70's in Wisconsin.

We think it's cute entertainment. I just don't want to see any of these actors open their mouths about the Iraq situation . . . it'll ruin another show for me!

[Archangelsk]

My guess is that the pilots did not declare and emergency and that they will be answering some questions from FAA officials real soon.

The potato chip bag exploding leads me to believe that it was a rapid decompression (Boyle's law in action) and/or something went wrong simultaneously with the outflow and safety valve (remote but plausible). Either way it's up to the pilot's descretion to declare an emergency and I still know some old time pilots who - unless their heads are on fire - refuse to declare under any conditions. Since I don't think this falls under the accident category (under NTSB 830) and is probably not an immediate reportable incident it's up to NTSB to ask for a report.

[leadpenny]

You're right, in the end it's always the pilots discretion to do what he/she thinks is right. Someone had CPR performed on them and I'm assuming the pilots requested a lower altitude (emergency descent or otherwise), and an early cancellation of the original flight plan. I suppose, if the pilot did not declare an emergency and, after they got on the ground, they realized that whatever malfunctioned was then OK, they re-filed and went on their way. It's hard for me to believe, however, that someone from the FAA field office, after seeing this report, wouldn't want to now ask someone, "What happened?"

[Archangelsk]

Someone had CPR performed on them

My guess is that someone went beyond Time of Useful Consciousness (TUC) and someone administered CPR in the mistaken belief that it was a heart attack. (It would be interesting to find out if the person who performed CPR reported that the victim was turning blue).

In any case, I'm glad we're only speculating about what happened rather than reading about a bad prang that killed all souls on board. (It also looks like I should go down to Melbourne again and experience hypoxia in the chamber). :-)