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BeBro
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of the Krauts
Mar 2000
time: 06:37
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Article
Plane with 121 crashes in Greece
From there:
quote:
ATHENS, Greece (CNN) -- A Cypriot plane carrying 121 people crashed north of Athens on Sunday, Greek officials said.
Helios Airlines Flight 522 with 115 passengers and six crew crashed en route from Larnaca, Cyprus to Athens, officials said.
Lefterios Ikonomou, a senior public order ministry official, told CNN the site of the crash was in Varnava, near the historic town of Marathon, about 50 km north of Athens.
Authorities sent two Greek F-16 jets to escort the plane after the control tower at Athens international airport lost contact with the pilots, state media reported.
One of the F-16 pilots reported he could not see the captain in the cockpit and that the co-pilot appeared to be slumped in his seat, a Greek Defense Ministry official told Reuters.
(...)
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That seems strange.
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Proteus_MST
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Seems like there was a Problen in the Oxygen supply, and that probably the Air within the interior of the plane wasn´t replaced regularly, allowing the CO2-Levels to rise.
This way the Pilots and Passengers would get more and more sleepy until they wouldn´t be able to stay awake anymore.
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Proteus_MST
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Jep, sounds to me like symptomes of a CO2-Poisoning, which probably hit the Pilots first, because the Cockpit is smaller than the passenger cabin, allowing the CO2-Levels to rise faster there:
quote:
Greek TV station Alpha reported that the pilot had sent a message to air traffic controllers saying the plane had a problem with its air conditioning, after which all communication was cut, Reuters said.
Greek television also reported that one of the passengers had sent a mobile text message to his cousin before the crash saying the pilots were slumped and that it was freezing in the plane.
"The pilot has turned blue (in the face)," the passenger said in the SMS message to his cousin, Reuters quoted the television report as saying. "Cousin farewell we're freezing."
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BlackCat
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Local radio says that the plane twice before have had problems with the airsystem - one time with an emergency landing and several hispitalized with breathing problems.
The airline of course denies this.
There should be some greek news sources with further details, but my greek is pretty bad, so I can't find it.
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Dr Strangelove
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I thought that airplanes had an automatic system which would drop the O2 masks when needed. Perhaps the system is linked only to internal air pressure instead of O2 or CO2 pressure.
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asleepathewheel
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listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:37
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I would prefer becoming sleepy and losing conciousness then dieing to a physically painful death. but that's just me.
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mrmitchell
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They just had another news article. 121 dead, 48 of those children.
Finding the article...slightly unrelated question:
Has there ever been a plane incident in which the masks that drop from the ceiling have made a difference?
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mrmitchell
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quote:
121 killed in Greek air crash
Associated Press
Sunday August 14, 2005
Guardian Unlimited
All 121 passengers and crew were killed when a Cypriot airliner crashed into a mountainous area near Athens today after the pilots apparently fell unconscious after a drop in cabin pressure.
The only piece of Helios Airways flight ZU522 that remained intact was the tail section of the jet and debris was strewn in a chasm and surrounding hills.
Bodies, clothing, and luggage were scattered around the wreckage, which triggered brush fires.
The flight, carrying 115 passengers and six crew, was headed from Larnaca, Cyprus, to Athens international airport when it crashed into a mountainous area north of Athens at about 12.05pm (1005BST). The Boeing 737 was due to fly on to Prague in the Czech Republic.
There were 48 children on board, Helios spokesman Giorgos Dimitriou told reporters at Athens airport, and "most of them were Greek Cypriots". A Czech government official also confirmed that figure.
The pilots of two F-16 jet fighters that intercepted the plane over the Aegean sea shortly before it crashed saw one of the airliner's pilots slumped over the controls, Greece's Alpha television channel quoted air force officials as saying.
It was unclear where the other pilot was. The officials also reported that there was no movement in the cabin.
A spokesman for the air force said the plane was intercepted at 10,360 metres after it entered Greek airspace.
Sotiris Voutas, a cousin of one of the passengers on the plane, told Alpha that he received a text message from the cousin on his mobile phone minutes before the crash.
"He told me the pilots were unconscious ... he said: 'Farewell, cousin, here we're frozen.'"
Fire chief Christos Smetis said there were no survivors among the 121 people aboard.
"The fire is still burning and there are no survivors," he said.
Greek state television NET reported that the two black boxes from the Cypriot plane were located.
A spokesman for the Cyprus government said that there were no signs it was a terrorist attack.
"From what we've heard so far, it's possible that there was some sort of problem with the plane," the spokesman said.
The coldness in the cabin suggested "the crew may have been suffering from lack of oxygen," said David Kaminski Morrow, deputy news editor of the British-based Air Transport Intelligence magazine.
The Greek prime minister, Costas Caramanlis, and the Cypriot president, Tassos Papadopoulos, have cancelled their vacations following the crash.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 |
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BlackCat
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quote:
Originally posted by mrmitchell
They just had another news article. 121 dead, 48 of those children.
Finding the article...slightly unrelated question:
Has there ever been a plane incident in which the masks that drop from the ceiling have made a difference? |
Lots, I think. Only one that I can recall is that 747 that lost part of it's fuselage - I think it was going to Hawaii, but not sure.
I guess that loss of cabin pressure is considered a minor incident - serious enough, but not as critical as loss of engine, lack of fuel etc.
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BlackCat
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quote:
Originally posted by Sandman
Horrible. Couldn't the autopilot be programmed to lower the plane to a safe altitude if the cabin pressure drops? |
There are a couple of problems with such an automatic reaction. First, I don't think it's wise to have flights plunging uncontrolled in heavy traffic areas, secondly, I'm not sure that they have radars pointing down - the flight may decide to place itself inside a mountain.
Loss of cabin pressure is dangerous, but if oxygen masks are working, it's not particularily dangerous.
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Pekka
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em seu burro dos pais!
Feb 2002
time: 07:37
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Crashing would be horrible. It's not the pain, even quick one, it's the horror before it, and I'd imagine the horror in plane must be a great one before it actually crashes, and lasts for a while. No thanks.
Blackcat, do you mean to say the plane doesn't know its altitude??? The plan doesn't have to have radars in order to know it's altitude.
It can be done reasonably, with emergency going on when the pressure goes off, and that it has to be switched off by the pilots, if not swithced off in x amount of time, it will drop down automatically to preset altitudes in that route. And when the emergency goes on, the flight controls etc have x amount of time to warn every plane close enough to be affected by it possibly.
Because if it's not switched off, it'll come down anyway, planes near or not.
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BlackCat
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quote:
Originally posted by SlowwHand
Dis, congratulations.
I'm pleased to announce that you've won the ACS Master of Understatement Award. |
I'm not that sure it's special fun to be aboard a plane diving from 9 km's height - if it's straight down it probably only takes a minute, but airplanes scaresly take that path, so there are several minutes to think about what's going to happen. There may not be that much physical pain, but I guess that there are time for a thought or two.
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BlackCat
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quote:
Originally posted by Pekka
Crashing would be horrible. It's not the pain, even quick one, it's the horror before it, and I'd imagine the horror in plane must be a great one before it actually crashes, and lasts for a while. No thanks.
Blackcat, do you mean to say the plane doesn't know its altitude??? The plan doesn't have to have radars in order to know it's altitude.
It can be done reasonably, with emergency going on when the pressure goes off, and that it has to be switched off by the pilots, if not swithced off in x amount of time, it will drop down automatically to preset altitudes in that route. And when the emergency goes on, the flight controls etc have x amount of time to warn every plane close enough to be affected by it possibly.
Because if it's not switched off, it'll come down anyway, planes near or not. |
For once we agree - it's the time before crash that may be the worst. BS - that must just be horrible 
Altitude is typically measured by air pressure, but modern planes may have downward radars to measure altitude above ground wich is a different thing from altitude above sea wich is the zero point.
You are right, there can easily be made automatics that incites such a dive, but imagine a flight that get some technical failure that implies a pressure drop when it's just above Heatrow.
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14-08-2005 15:44
... Though perhaps being unconscious is better than staying alive during a crash and dying on impact. Not that either option sounds particularly attractive. 
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