Second Reported Incident In As Many Days

A Continental Airlines airliner with 118 passengers onboard, including seven members of Congress, made an emergency landing Tuesday after the Boeing 737-700 reportedly suffered a loss of cabin pressure.

ABC News reports oxygen masks deployed shortly after the airliner reached cruising altitude on its trip from Houston, TX to Washington DC. The plane's flight crew put the 737 into a 'steep dive' to reach more breathable altitudes, said a spokesperson for Texas congressman Ted Poe.

The airliner made a safe emergency landing in New Orleans. Jesse Benton, a spokesman for Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, termed the matter "more of an inconvenience than anything else."

Mechanics are now working to determine the cause of the problem, the second such incident reported in as many days.

On Monday, a Northwest Airlines DC-9 made an emergency landing in Madison, WI following a similar loss of cabin pressure on its flight from Minneapolis to Chicago. All 115 passengers aboard Flight 126 were then treated to a bus ride to Chicago.

That's a fate lawmakers onboard the Continental plane were able to avoid, as the airline instead booked passengers on other flights to DC. Ironically, though, all seven Texas congressmen arrived too late to cast their votes on... an aviation safety bill.

FMI: www.continental.com, www.nwa.com, www.faa.gov