The Irish airline Ryanair has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to a passenger who was hurt when one of its planes lost pressure and made an emergency landing.
The settlement is understood to be €40,000, reports the Irish Independent.
It’s the first in a series of 18 compensation claims following the incident, which happened on a flight from Dublin to Zadar, Croatia in 2018.
As Ryanair’s flight FR7312 passed over continental Europe on 13 July, it experienced a sudden drop in cabin pressure.
Oxygen masks were released and pilots made the decision to make an emergency landing at Frankfurt’s Hahn Airport.
However, 33 of the 189 passengers were treated in hospital following the “controlled descent” into Frankfurt, which the airline said was due to a loss of cabin pressure 80 minutes into the journey.
Flight data showed that the aircraft made a drop of 27,000ft in around seven minutes.
Passenger Minerva Galvan tweeted at the time: “The worst moments of my whole life. You are just falling in the sky, your ears burn, there is no air and your mouth taste like iron.”
The incident prompted a spate of lawsuits from passengers who claim they were injured during the pressure drop. Some are claiming for physical pain or injury, some for psychological distress.
Lawyers for the claimant, an Irish woman, said she had suffered severe pain to her ears and shock to her entire nervous system.
She told her legal team, Coleman Legal, that she had lost her job due to absence from work, and had been prescribed an anti-anxiety medication following the experience.
She claims she had suffered symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and seen a counsellor in the months afterwards.
The case came before Dublin Circuit Civil Court yesterday, but the judge was told that it had been settled for an undisclosed sum.
At least 18 other passengers from the flight have filed separate claims with Coleman Legal.
A spokesperson for Ryanair declined to comment on the case.
In May, more than 80 British holidaymakers who got food poisoning at the same resort were awarded total compensation of £232,000 by tour operator Tui at London’s High Court.
The group of 83 had taken action against the package holiday company after claiming they fell ill on a Tui-organised trip to Lanzarote.
