Air travellers left nervous by images of this week's frightening ordeal for passengers on an AirAsia flight should stay calm, listen to safety briefings and learn the mechanics of flying, says an aviation expert.
Alarms showed the cabin air pressure had dropped, so the plane had to descend from 32,000 feet to 10,000 feet in a matter of minutes during the budget airline's flight from Perth to Bali on Sunday.
Air stewards on board were accused of fuelling panic on board.
"They were yelling and screaming and they were frightening more people, you know, especially some young kids," one man said after the plane returned to Perth, a complaint echoed by many of the passengers.
The founder of the Fear of Flying organisation in New Zealand, Grant Amos, told 1 NEWS that when the system indicates the aircraft has depressurised it's standard procedure to descend as fast as possible to 10,000 feet, and the plane is "structurally capable of handling all of that".
"The reason for that is because at 10,000 feet you can breath the air and you don't freeze to death. Above that and we're starting to run out of oxygen and we're starting to get cold," he explained.
One bit of advice for anyone nervous after seeing passengers' footage of the ordeal is to listen to safety briefings, which Mr Amos says most, but not all passengers do.
He says they should also "think more carefully about what they carry onto the aircraft in terms of how much junk they've got with them".
"And maybe they should read or just brush up on a little bit about what has really taken place when a plane flies."
Mr Amos says Fear of Flying courses "demystify the whole concept of flying."
"Reduce some of the emotions that you carry on yourself to the plane, so you're to some extent more comfortable about what you're doing and where you're going. Often there's a lot of emotion simply because you're on there," he said.
AirAsia has apologised for the incident, which the Australian Transport Safety Bureau has categorised as serious and is investigating.
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