Posted on 03/18/2014 12:18:38 PM PDT by servo1969
They had another landing strip in sight?
Ok, in all due respect to the retired 777 captain, I have some problems with a lot of what he said.
-At 30,000 feet you have about 15 seconds of useful consciousness, much less if a smoker or out of shape, or ill or old.
-An average oxygen generator that fuels the passenger masks only will last about 10 to 12 minutes. 20 minutes above 25,000 is fantasy. That just won’t happen.
-Even with the O2 generator passenger oxygen, they would have little time of useful consciousness. They are there more to keep you alive in a rapid descent after a decompression at altitude.
The simple fact is that at those altitudes there is simply just not enough atmospheric pressure, even at 100 percent oxygen levels, to feed enough oxygen from your lungs to your bloodstream, to keep you from experiencing extreme hypoxia. That is why the pilots O2 is different from the passengers, and feeds O2 through a mask that is held firmly to seal the mouth and nose with positive pressure 100 percent oxygen. The loose mask with the bag is more to just keep people alive in the descent. And not for long.
PAX O2 deploys on most aircraft automatically when the cabin altitude climbs above 14000 feet. For smoke, it can be deployed manually, but I just checked and the A320 series QRH does not have PAX O2 to be deployed for smoke - only for volcanic ash.The flight crew and the flight attendants all have personal PBE hoods for fire fighting (shielded for smoke, with a short supply of O2).
Or on their FMS. There is “closest airport” switch, and it displays all airports within certain parameters. If one was more familiar to the captain, he may have opted for that instead.
Agreed.
They also made large course changes a couple of times, which isn't consistent with an incapacitated crew unless the FMS was programmed that way. But if they were diverting to an emergency field they wouldn't have programmed a zigzag routing.
I think the least likely is pilot suicide. Theft, flight deck fire, and hijack are all plausible. As well, an “accidental” shoot down by one of the countries within 7 hours of KUL.
I saw a nova episode on that crash recently. IIRC, they said that because it fell straight down landing on its belly that’s why some pieces are larger than they would be diving nose first at a greater speed.
It wouldn't surprise me if on the B777 it was totally automatic, perhaps getting data from redundant dual Air Data Computers or something similar to know and cross check what altitude the a/c is at and if it should deploy, but I also wouldn't be surprised to learn it could be disabled and/or controlled manually.
It's also at least partially why jihadists on expired visas got training making takeoffs but not landings in heavy jets. That turned out badly for us.
In reference to the passengers, now we need to go back to your term, deploy. Masks will deploy automatically at a cabin pressure altitude of 14,000 feet or if manually deployed by the cockpit crew.
Don’t assume the airplane will stall at Flight Level 450. I got into it with another Freeper on that topic. I’ve taken airplanes above their service ceiling on a number of occasions. The retired captain that called Rush confirmed that a B777 can sustain flight at FL450. A service ceiling is defined as the highest altitude where an aircraft can maintain a fifty foot per minute climb.
And like you, I don’t put complete faith in the FL450 number until we know more about the source.
Nobody is suspecting that, you are projecting.............
Which one was that?
On 25 May 2003 a Boeing 727-223, registered N844AA, was stolen from Quatro de Fevereiro Airport, Luanda, Angola.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Boeing_727-223_disappearance
I saw those responses and decided it wasn't worth it to engage them. That they don't understand the difference between a belly flop where a human being goes belly first into the water from a few feet high, vs. a large aircraft hitting water while at high speeds from thousands of feet above pretty much tells you everything you need to know about their logic and reasoning skills.
My sincere apologies.
The burning nose wheel theory has been described as highly unlikely. It has no brake gear to heat up, and is simply a tire on a rim. Even if it was under-inflated during takeoff, the likelihood it started on fire and filled the cockpit with smoke isn't likely. (I've heard two pilots discredit that today.)
No it wouldn't: "The aircraft remained stalled during its entire 3 minute 30 second descent from 38,000 feet[30] before it hit the ocean surface at a speed of 151 knots (280 km/h)
There's a major difference between a stall and descent speed of 151 knots and a full thrust speed of 500 - 600 MPH.............a BIG difference.
The retired pilot's opinion makes a hell of a lot more sense that all the other crap that has been tossed at us by the MSM..............
But then again, it could very well have been alien abduction...........
OK, so what's your point?
This one will never be found and no one will ever know what happened.
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