Posted on 08/16/2005 5:28:38 PM PDT by blam
Cabin staff struggled to control crash plane
By Tabitha Morgan in Nicosia (Filed: 17/08/2005)
The cabin crew of the Helios Airlines plane that crashed in Greece on Sunday tried to bring it under control but could do nothing to save the aircraft, it was disclosed yesterday.
Video footage retrieved from the nose cones of the F16 fighter planes scrambled to accompany the stricken Cypriot aircraft showed a man and a woman enter the cockpit, said Greek media reports.
They were thought to be a newly-trained pilot standing in as cabin crew and his stewardess girlfriend. The stewardess was seen in the captain's seat, while the first officer remained unconscious in the right-hand seat. The couple wrestled in vain with the controls of the Boeing 737, Greek military sources said.
All 121 passengers and crew died when the plane plunged into a hillside north of Athens during a flight from Larnaca.
Autopsies on 26 bodies, including the co-pilot, showed they were alive but not necessarily conscious when the plane went down. Earlier reports suggested that all on board may have frozen to death before the crash.
Cypriot television said many of the bodies retrieved were still wearing oxygen masks. Once the masks had been released, prompted by a drop in pressure, the cabin crew would have expected the plane to descend immediately from 34,00 ft to a breathable altitude below 15,000 ft.
Aviation experts believe that when this failed to happen cabin staff entered the cockpit, aware that the flight crew's emergency oxygen supply was limited. But with the pilots incapacitated the attendants lacked the skill to fly the airliner or even to make a mayday call.
Experts said that by this stage the jet would have been beyond the range of the Cyprus control centre in Nicosia - the last frequency tuned on the radio.
Even if the cabin crew had been familiar with the radio they were unlikely to have known how to tune either to Athens control or international emergency.
Back in the cabin, the passengers' oxygen supply was dwindling.
Helios Airways admitted yesterday that the crashed aircraft had experienced a decompression problem in the past. A statement on the airline's website said the incident occurred on a flight from Warsaw to Larnaca last December and the plane "landed in accordance with normal procedures".
Helios went on to say that the incident was cleared at the time by the Cypriot air accident investigators and Britain's Civil Aviation Authority, which did not question the aircraft's maintenance.
The authorities at Birmingham International Airport, meanwhile, said that a day before the crash in Greece another Helios Airways Boeing 737 had reported difficulties with its wing flaps. Emergency services were deployed but the plane landed safely.
A Greek man was yesterday charged with disseminating false information after police said he falsely claimed to have received a text message from a passenger before Sunday's crash. Nektarios Voutas, 32, said he had received a mobile phone call and changed the wording of the supposed text in different media interviews.
His arraignment was delayed after he tripped outside the public prosecutor's office and had to be treated for face injuries in hospital.
Greek aviation officials yesterday expressed doubts over whether the crash aircraft's black box voice recorder would be recovered. Capt Akrivos Tsolakis, the head of the Air Accident Investigation and Aviation Safety Board, said that only the cover of the recorder had been retrieved.
This was badly damaged, so it was unlikely that the contents, if found, could reveal much about the flight's last moments.
In Cyprus, demands for explanations for the accident from grieving relatives were becoming louder.
How could the cabin staff survive the decompression(?) and the pilots couldn't?
-----
Good question, and the other is: what caused the decompression in the first place? Where was the leak and it had to be a rather large leak...door pops off, whatever?
Something was wrong with the pilot oxygen supply (not properly filled). Just a possibility.
Something was wrong with the pilot oxygen supply (not properly filled). Just a possibility.
Make that pilot...did they ever find the other pilot's body? This article seems to say there was only one pilot in the cockpit at the time the fighters observed them.
A newly trained pilot didn't know how to make a mayday call?
What was she, instead of the newly trained pilot, doing in the captain's seat?
Sounds like the rudder problem aboard the EgyptAir flight where the pilot killed the passengers. Anyone?
**His arraignment was delayed after he tripped outside the public prosecutor's office and had to be treated for face injuries in hospital.***
Sounds like someone didnt like him.
Seems to me that commercial jetliners ought to be equipped with a highly visible and obviously labelled emergency radio button, that automatically goes out to all control towers or to the international emergency frequency. Better yet, one such button inside the cockpit and another outside, since nowadays it can be virtually impossible to get into the cockpit if the pilots are incapacitated. Not only should it be possible for a complete amateur to send out a call for emergency assistance, but even a panicked pilot and co-pilot already dealing with a major emergency, might not be able to correctly tune a radio to a new frequency.
If you can dial in that frequency, and push the button on the "Push to talk" switch, someone WILL hear you, just about everywhere airplanes fly.
k.i.alive for Wednesday Aug 17
This plane reported problems with its air conditioning system early in the flight. Doubtful that there was also a problem originating with the rudder.
Portable oxygen bottles. There are always enough in the cabin for the flight attendants plus extras for things like medical emergencies.
Hmmm. But not enough for the pilots. Fishy.
Maybe he passed-out too.
more on Helios crash (in Greece)
Tomorrow will bring another story.
There is nothing fishy about it. The pilots have their own oxygen supply. They don't use the POB's like the cabin crew. If there was a problem with it, they could have easily scummed to hypoxia before being able to reach a POB.
But the article states he was there, too.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.