Narrative:

We were on the last leg of a three day trip. We had a good aircraft with the exception of the first officer master caution light being on MEL. We noticed the aircraft had previous write ups concerning pressurization problems but there was nothing on MEL. Push back; taxi; takeoff and initial climb were uneventful. I heard my flight attendants talking about what gate we were going to and how cold it was in the back. I started talking to them and told them we would warm it up. While I was talking to them; we got a cabin aural warning followed by a cabin altitude light and master warning light. We simultaneously had a pressure bump whereupon I cleared my ears but it was not as bad a bump as I would have imagined losing pressure all at once. The flight attendant in back then told me the masks had deployed and asked if this was this for real. I told them it was for real and for everyone to put on their masks. The auto inoperative light and both one and two controller inoperative lights were illuminated. The aircraft was passing through approximately 14.5k at the time this started. We never got a master caution light on the capt side and the first officer's was on MEL. Both the first officer and I looked at the pressurization panel and saw the cabin altitude was the same as the aircraft altitude and was climbing. The first officer initiated a level off and we stopped climbing at approximately FL190. We donned our oxygen masks and the first officer went to manual pressurization and seemed to regain control of the cabin. I elected to do a descent because it would take too long to bring the cabin back down to 10k comfortably. I declared an emergency with center and descended to 10k. We accomplished the QRH to no avail. We lowered the cabin to an altitude of 8.5k for the flight to destination. I elected to continue as nothing else was wrong with the aircraft that we could ascertain. The remainder of the flight was uneventful. I have to commend my flight attendant crew as they responded superbly. The passengers were nonplussed when we deplaned and the whole crew received many kudos for the job we did. My first officer handled this situation wonderfully. His knowledge and situational awareness made this event much easier to handle.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An MD80 experienced a rapid loss of cabin pressurization climbing through 14500 feet. The masks dropped; an emergency was declared; and the flight descended to 10000 feet to continue to its nearby destination.

Narrative: We were on the last leg of a three day trip. We had a good aircraft with the exception of the First Officer master caution light being on MEL. We noticed the aircraft had previous write ups concerning pressurization problems but there was nothing on MEL. Push back; taxi; takeoff and initial climb were uneventful. I heard my Flight Attendants talking about what gate we were going to and how cold it was in the back. I started talking to them and told them we would warm it up. While I was talking to them; we got a cabin aural warning followed by a cabin altitude light and master warning light. We simultaneously had a pressure bump whereupon I cleared my ears but it was not as bad a bump as I would have imagined losing pressure all at once. The Flight attendant in back then told me the masks had deployed and asked if this was this for real. I told them it was for real and for everyone to put on their masks. The auto INOP light and both one and two controller INOP lights were illuminated. The aircraft was passing through approximately 14.5k at the time this started. We never got a master caution light on the Capt side and the First Officer's was on MEL. Both the First Officer and I looked at the pressurization panel and saw the cabin altitude was the same as the aircraft altitude and was climbing. The First Officer initiated a level off and we stopped climbing at approximately FL190. We donned our oxygen masks and the First Officer went to manual pressurization and seemed to regain control of the cabin. I elected to do a descent because it would take too long to bring the cabin back down to 10k comfortably. I declared an emergency with Center and descended to 10k. We accomplished the QRH to no avail. We lowered the cabin to an altitude of 8.5k for the flight to destination. I elected to continue as nothing else was wrong with the aircraft that we could ascertain. The remainder of the flight was uneventful. I have to commend my Flight Attendant crew as they responded superbly. The passengers were nonplussed when we deplaned and the whole crew received many kudos for the job we did. My First Officer handled this situation wonderfully. His knowledge and situational awareness made this event much easier to handle.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.