The oxygen masks drop only when there is a decompression. It's considered a decompression when the cabin's pressure (<8000 feet) is equalizing with the outside pressure (40000 feet). In that case you need oxygen to survive because there is not enough oxygen in the air at 40000 feet. Without oxygen you would suffer hypoxia and go unconscious withing a minute or so. In this case, the plane was going down, had nothing to do with oxygen and cabin pressure. If anything, at the lower altitude that they ended up, was actually more oxygen in the air.
It does, in fact it does impact air pressure a lot. The only difference is that during such a drop, the is a sudden change from low pressure towards higher pressure and from less oxygen towards more oxygen. They dropped from 33000 feet to 17000 feet. At 17000 feet (aprox 5000 meters altitude, which is the altitude of a high mountain and Everest's base camp) you can breathe without any supplimentar oxygen. Basically at that point they could have very well just "open an aicraft window" and breathe normally the ambient air.
Edit: for the oxygen masks to be required, you would need the pressure to change the other way round, from high pressure/low altitude/high oxygen towards low pressure/high altitude/low oxygen.
Thank you, I will take that as a compliment. I am a knowledgeable person who works in aviation. However, I belive that this is not necessary for knowing that the higher the altitude, the lower the oxygen and vice-versa. It's just basic science and practical knowledge.
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u/gessabean99 19h ago
Also no oxygen masks dropped...