An off-duty pilot aboard an American Airlines flight claims he suffered permanent hearing loss, and now has a “constant ringing” in his ears, after the crew asked him to help fix a potentially catastrophic door-seal failure that occurred nearly six miles up in the sky.
Once he volunteered to assist on the Denver-Miami flight last year, Capt. Wayne Hoefler, a Colorado Springs resident who flies long-haul 747s to global destinations, was “continually subjected to the constant deafening scream of the seal failure only inches from his ears,” according to a federal lawsuit filed Monday.
This, Hoefler’s complaint contends, left him partially deaf and with a distressing case of tinnitus – a constant ringing, buzzing, or hissing in the ears, with no known cure – from the intense shriek of high-pressure air escaping through the narrow gap between the door and the plane’s interior.
“It was complete chaos,” Hoefler told The Independent. “Everybody was freaking out.”
The 57-year-old Hoefler, who is now forced to wear hearing aids, spent more than half an hour working on the faulty seal – on his back, with his arm completely extended inside the door’s inner mechanism, to try and reach the source of the leak – which necessarily forced his head up against the door itself, he said.
“It’s an [incredibly high] frequency, at decibel levels that are just unbearable,” Hoefler explained. “It is the loudest whistle you’ve ever heard, a high, high-pitched whistle, just screaming. It’s not like anything you’ve ever heard before. It sounds like an F-15 or an F-35 taking off. Unfortunately, I was laying right next to it, and that’s what fried the nerves in both my ears.”
The unexpected depressurization occurred when the plane got to about 28,000 feet, according to Hoefler.
Hoefler’s lawsuit was “only necessary because American Airlines has refused to accept responsibility for Mr. Hoefler’s damages,” attorney Justin Walker said.
American Airlines, and the attorneys defending the carrier in court, did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment by The Independent.
On January 4, 2024, Hoefler boarded American Airlines flight AA154 from Denver to Miami, where he was scheduled to fly a cargo run for Atlas Air.
The 737-8 Max departed without incident, according to Hoefler’s complaint, which was initially filed September 4 in Denver County District Court before being removed to federal court on September 29.
As the aircraft gained altitude, the cabin pressurized as normal, the complaint states.
Then, once the plane got to cruising altitude, “a failure in the sealing of the aircraft body suddenly arose causing a loud screaming/hissing as air screamed out of the pressurized aircraft body thousands of feet above the ground,” it reads, explaining that the seal failure “was determined to be coming from a door at the front of the aircraft.”
“We were all holding our hands over our ears,” said Hoefler, who was sitting in the first row of the plane.
Hoefler, a military veteran, told The Independent that he identified himself as a commercial pilot to a panicked flight attendant, and when she asked him to help, he agreed.
“At first I couldn’t figure out where the noise was coming from,” Hoefler said, describing the process of elimination by which he eventually located the seal failure in the forward-most door, on the right side of the aircraft. “When I got to the bottom of the… door, I could hear a definite switch in the sound vibration, but the [leak] was underneath the raft. It was physically as far as I could reach in… I could feel the air rushing out of it, I could feel the coldness of the outside air.”
But Hoefler’s first stab at fixing the problem was unsuccessful, according to the complaint.
On Wednesday, he recalled spending several minutes patching the seal with plastic sheeting, toilet paper, and water. At first, the temporary fix worked. However, within 15 minutes or so, the seal blew out again, according to Hoefler.
“Following his first attempt to address the seal failure… Mr. Hoefler got back up and conferred with Flight AA 0154’s Captain to discuss the situation,” the complaint states.
Hoefler got back down on the floor and “was on my back for another 20, 25 minutes patching the door more vigorously this time,” he said.
“I took wads of paper and made stucco out of it, and used that to make a plug,” Hoefler told The Independent.
The shrieking noise soon stopped, and Hoefler knew his latest try had worked. At this point, the first-class flight attendants, who Hoefler said had rushed to the rear of the aircraft over “worrie[s] about the door leaving the airplane,” returned to the front of the cabin.
“During the entire second attempt, Mr. Hoefler was continually subjected to the constant deafening scream of the seal failure,” the complaint alleges.
Not wanting to take any chances, the pilot diverted the flight to Dallas, where the passengers disembarked and another plane was brought in to ferry everyone to Miami, many hours later than planned, according to Hoefler.
“Mr. Hoefler’s hearing was permanently damaged as a result of the above, for which he now has constant ringing tinnitus and decreased hearing,” the complaint states.
A day later, a door plug on an Alaska Airlines 737-9 Max blew out in an uncontrolled decompression incident 16,000 feet above Portland, Oregon, ripping the shoes and socks off of one passenger sitting nearby.
“That feeling of no control is pretty terrifying,” passenger Cuong Tran told the BBC at the time. “The suction was so strong and I was hanging on for dear life. Both my shoes ended up getting sucked out – I had my shoe on pretty tight too. My phone, which was in my hand, disappeared.”
Boeing settled a $1 billion lawsuit over the summer with a group of passengers who were aboard the Alaska Airlines flight, saying it would “continue to work on strengthening safety and quality across our operations.”
Although Hoefler is now back in the cockpit, commercial pilots above the age of 40 are required to undergo, and pass, two FAA medical exams each year.
“He’s worried about the impact on his life as a pilot,” Walker, Hoefler’s attorney, told The Independent.
Hoefler’s complaint says his hearing loss “would not have occurred unless someone was negligent in the operation, repair, inspection, and/or maintenance of Flight AA 0154’s aircraft,” pointing the finger directly at American.
As a result, Hoefler has “incurred serious and permanent injuries; loss of income/wages; and other damages,” along with “economic damages and non-economic damages including permanent impairment of function, past and future mental anguish, past and future pain and suffering and past and future loss of quality of life,” the complaint states.
He is demanding a jury trial and compensatory damages for injuries, damages, and losses, plus interest.
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