Coroner: 6 Alive When Greek Plane Crashed

CNN ^

[traumer]

ATHENS, Greece (AP) - At least six of the 121 people aboard a Cypriot plane were alive when the aircraft crashed while on autopilot, a coroner said Monday, as authorities raided the airline's offices and struggled to explain the actions of the pilot and crew.

The results of the first six autopsies shed some light on the final minutes of Helios Airlines Flight ZU522, which crashed Sunday into a hillside in suburban Athens, killing all 115 passengers and six crew members. But they failed to answer all the questions.

Greek aviation officials have said the plane apparently lost pressure suddenly, causing a rapid loss of oxygen on board. In that case, passengers and flight crew would have had only seconds to put on oxygen masks before losing consciousness amid subzero temperatures. Death would be minutes behind.

But two fighter jet pilots who scrambled to intercept the plane saw the co-pilot slumped over, oxygen masks in the plane dangling, and two unidentified people trying to take control of the plane. The pilot was not in his seat when the plane crashed, about 2 1/2 hours after the crew first radioed in air conditioning problems.

``It's odd,'' said Terry McVenes, executive air safety chairman for the Air Line Pilots Association, International. ``It's a very rare event to even have a pressurization problem and in general crews are very well trained to deal with it.''

[traumer]

[Rokurota]

Seconds to respond? Seconds is defined as 2 or 60?

There was that flight near Hawaii where the plane was nearly ripped apart at 24000 feet. Yet the only person who died was the poor flight attendant who got sucked out.

[PetroniusMaximus]

*** and two unidentified people trying to take control of the plane***

There it is.

[Lawgvr1955]

I thought Millennium was a good movie.

[Atchafalaya]

Papers today were saying between 15-30 secs to get the O2 mask on before one would pass out.

[familyop]

"In that case, passengers and flight crew would have had only seconds to put on oxygen masks before losing consciousness..."

The CNN piece is full of it, along with the usual errors in English ("...failed to answer all the questions.").

[Rokurota]

So there should have been no problem for the pilots. Something really fishy here.

[jwpjr]

If the aircraft was on auto pilot when the decompression accrued then it should have continued on at the course and altitude it was at when the incident happened. They reportedly hit the mountain at 10,000 feet. At that altitude there would be enough O2 and heat to keep them going. It could be that they had started their descent for the airport, but that would not give the military time to scramble the fighters and intercept the doomed aircraft plus provide time for the pilots to check out what was happening in the cockpit.

All of this is conjecture of course. Hopefully the flight data and cockpit voice recorders will shed a lot of light on what was going on. It's going to be an interesting one, regardless of what it turns out to have been.

[stylin19a]

something about this article seems off-kilter. Can they know this:

"After the crash, authorities said it appeared to have been caused by a technical failure - resulting in high-altitude decompression. A Cypriot transport official had said Sunday the passengers and crew may have been dead before the plane crashed."

in less than 24 hours ?

[Rokurota]

Hopefully the flight data and cockpit voice recorders will shed a lot of light on what was going on

The article has someone stating that the voice recorder may be too damaged. Fishy.

[Atchafalaya]

It is strange in that I would think they were trained in case of that type of emergency (decompression); seems like the only thing to do after donning their masks would be to get to a lower altitude ASAP. The plane was flying ok it seems. Yeah, fishy.

[Rokurota]

I know about the golfer's (forgot his name) private plane, but does anyone know of any similar case in which a commercial plane crashed because of what they are speculating. (Similar case not having to go back to 1935).

[traumer]

[Atchafalaya]

The plane had to be at altitude (34000 ft) long enough for controllers to get concerned, scramble F16's which caught up with the jet at I believe 34000 ft. That would be plenty of time for the passengers to have been rendered unconscious/dead. Anyone remember what altitude Payne Stewart's plane was at when fighter aircraft caught up with it?

[AntiGuv]

There was a plane in Australia in 2000, but I'm not sure if that was commercial or what.

[Rokurota]

The plane was on autopilot at 35,000 feet. The pilots of the F-16s reported seeing one of the pilots slumped over its controls, but did not see the other pilot. They saw two people who they thought were crew members trying to prevent the plane from crashing, a government spokesman said.

Who were these people and why were they okay at 35000 feet?

[Atchafalaya]

Thats where the fish come in. Didn't they find a flight attendent in the cockpit weckage? The capt. may have gone back in the cabin and the decompresion happened while he was out of the cockpit??? I don't know. Maybe they should ask Mr. Kallestram or Jim Hall if they think the centerline fuel tank leaked and the fumes made everyone pass out.

[Atchafalaya]

Thats where the fish come in. Didn't they find a flight attendent in the cockpit weckage? The capt. may have gone back in the cabin and the decompresion happened while he was out of the cockpit??? I don't know. Maybe they should ask Mr. Kallestram or Jim Hall if they think the centerline fuel tank leaked and the fumes made everyone pass out.

[stylin19a]

there's a couple/3 incidents here:

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:OSsiwMvAMWUJ:www.planecrashinfo.com/unusual.htm+decompression+plane+crash&hl=en&client=opera

but the decompression was from specific causes.