Posted on 08/16/2005 10:29:43 AM PDT by d-informed-1
My mechanic tell me that this series of airframe was built with an actual isolation valve for both the cabin and the cockpit oxy supply. Post flight check requires they be shut (to guard against leak down) and preflight requires they be checked open. The simple omission of checking open could have killed the flight. The walk-around bottles/generators that passenger planes carry are intended as much for passenger medemers as for crew salvation. On this plane the pilots mask is over his right shoulder so that if he can reach his own ear he can connect----to me that means sucked dry or shut off---and you are correct about the ten second window, maybe 30 if depressurization was slow.
So much for the stories that everybody was frozen solid.
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