A Q400 flight attendant discovered one of the aft galley portable oxygen bottles empty and a short w...

Narrative:

During pre-flight; aft galley; lower doghouse drawer; aircraft right; Q400; one of the large portable oxygen bottles (pobs) gauge was reading empty. I immediately picked up the PA and announced to captain; who was loading his bags in the front of the cabin; that one of my O2 bottles was empty. Sorry. (We were 45 minutes before departure; 15 minutes before boarding. If I remember correctly.) he called maintenance or company personnel. While on the phone with them; he came to the aft galley to investigate. He was bent over; checking the bottles and answering questions on the phone. About ten minutes later; something made me look at the bottle again to make sure it was indeed empty. When I opened the drawer; I noticed the green-in-line-flow-indicator was showing on the other bottle. I was confused for a minute. Looked at the gauge. It was also empty. It was turned on. I turned it off and called the captain on the interphone; and informed him. I assume the captain accidentally turned on the full bottle. I don't know. He did say they were never trained on how to use our equipment back there other than preflight for repo reasons. We still had the other two mini O2 bottles full.I don't know how the original bottle got emptied. Was it cabin crew the day before? ...A passenger playing around?...ground crew?...catering?...or equipment malfunction? No telling.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Q400 Flight Attendant discovered one of the aft galley portable oxygen bottles empty and a short while later; after the Captain verified her discovery; the second bottle was found empty.

Narrative: During pre-flight; aft galley; lower doghouse drawer; aircraft right; Q400; one of the large portable oxygen bottles (POBs) gauge was reading empty. I immediately picked up the PA and announced to Captain; who was loading his bags in the front of the cabin; that one of my O2 bottles was empty. Sorry. (We were 45 minutes before departure; 15 minutes before boarding. if I remember correctly.) He called Maintenance or company personnel. While on the phone with them; he came to the aft galley to investigate. He was bent over; checking the bottles and answering questions on the phone. About ten minutes later; something made me look at the bottle again to make sure it was indeed empty. When I opened the drawer; I noticed the green-in-line-flow-indicator was showing on the other bottle. I was confused for a minute. Looked at the gauge. It was also empty. It was turned on. I turned it off and called the Captain on the interphone; and informed him. I assume the Captain accidentally turned on the full bottle. I don't know. He did say they were never trained on how to use our equipment back there other than preflight for repo reasons. We still had the other two mini O2 bottles full.I don't know how the original bottle got emptied. Was it cabin crew the day before? ...a passenger playing around?...ground crew?...catering?...or equipment malfunction? No telling.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1128946
Time
Date	201311
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Dash 8-400
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Parked
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Oxygen System/Portable
Person 1
Function	Flight Attendant In Charge
Qualification	Flight Attendant Current
Experience	Flight Attendant Airline Total 1 Flight Attendant Total 13
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

A Q400 flight attendant discovered one of the aft galley portable oxygen bottles empty and a short while later; after the captain verified her discovery; the second bottle was found empty.