Last month, the federal government secretly ordered every airline in the United States to remove emergency oxygen in every lavatory on all 6,000 domestic commercial aircraft.
Under Air Worthiness Directive 2011-04-09, made public this week, the Federal Aviation Administration directed all airlines to disable the lavatory oxygen generators to "eliminate a potential safety and security vulnerability.”
That means that if there’s a sudden loss of cabin pressure, now only those passengers at their seats will have oxygen flowing to the masks that drop down from the ceiling.
“I’m in shock,” said Kate Hanni, executive director of Flyersrights.org, a nonprofit airline passengers' rights organization. “We get reports of mid-air decompression events all the time. So now going to the bathroom on a commercial flight can kill you? I’m panicking just thinking about this.”
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