I just had a decompression in the A310. Flying LIPZ Venice to Edinburgh, but I didn’t get there. I was cruising at FL300 for quite a while enjoying the view when all of a sudden the master caution went off. The cabin alt was climbing steadily.
I spent a minute trying to troubleshoot before deciding it wasn’t my settings and it must have failed. I then started an emergency descent to 10,000ft and the cabin altitude peaked at nearly 18,000ft before it came down.
I was halfway across Germany and I had to double back and divert to Frankfurt where I landed all OK.
I started C&D following all checklists as I always do. I’ve flown this A310 many times and it’s the first time this has happened. The only thing I could find that was different to normal was I’d accidentally left the engine starter rotary switch on Start A, which I don’t remember doing before.
I didn’t know if this was supposed to be a simulated failure, but all failures are disabled in the menu. I was disappointed not to make it to Edinburgh but entertained by what felt like quite a real failure. It certainly was more fun than black screens and CTD which is how many of my A310 flights have ended on xbox.
In hindsight it looks likely that this bug is not fully fixed as it doesn’t appear to be deliberately simulated.
On the way down…
Just checking nobody had opened the emergency exit in flight!
It’s like the universe set this up deliberately. I was listening to Mentour Pilot’s very nice video on Asiana 8124 when the passenger opened the door last month, then just as it was ending this whole thing kicked off! Truely bizarre.