Plane may have been hijacked (GREECE)

news24.com ^ | 8/14/05 | N/A

[Gorons]

Athens - A Cypriot Boeing 737 airliner with 121 people on board from Larnaca, Cyprus, crashed apparently pilotless on Sunday near Athens, a traffic controller at Athens international airport told AFP.

Just before the crash, airforce crew observed the airline's pilots doubled up in the cabin, the controller said.

A spokesperson for the Greek army chief-of-staff said hijacking "could not be ruled out".

"An act of piracy is likely," said the spokesperson, Gerassimos Kalpoyannakis. The pilots of the two F16 fighters that were sent up to escort the airliner before the crash "saw a situation that was not normal in the pilots' cabin."

Kalpoyannakis said the plane crashed at Varnava, an uninhabited area about 40 kilometres northeast of Athens and not on the Euboea peninsula as previously reported by the Athens control tower.

He said teams of rescue workers, fire-fighters and ambulances were on their way to the scene and that all the hospitals in the region had been placed on emergency status.

There was no immediate word on casualties.

"The plane has crashed," said Iannis Pantazatos, who was in charge of the Athens airport control tower. "The information was given to us by the air force, which sent two fighters to escort the aircraft."

Shortly before the plane crashed, Pantazatos told AFP: "The airport lost all contact with the plane, which should have landed in the late morning, and two air force planes sent up in reconnaissance found it flying above the Euboea peninsula, but they saw the pilots doubled up in the cabin."

"We do not know how the plane is flying. It is being escorted by the military planes and the airport is in a state of emergency." he said.

The Helios airways plane was reported to be carrying 115 passengers and six crew.

Helios, established in 1999, is the first private airline in Cyprus. It had a fleet of four Boeing 737 jets and operated flights to London, Athens, Sofia, Dublin and Strasbourg in France.

[Silas]

A little info:

http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/europe/cy.htm

"Cyprus, a onetime Greek colony and the site of many military incursions over the centuries, is still today, an island in conflict between two opposing factions.

The southern part of this Mediterranean island (the Greek Area) is called the Republic of Cyprus, and is controlled by the officially recognized Cyprus government.

About one-third of Cyprus is occupied by Turkey, and they call it the Republic of Northern Cyprus. That claim is not recognized by the United Nations, or any other country.

Because of a Turkish invasion in 1974, the United Nation's established a buffer zone (colored gray), and that zone runs through the middle of the island, dissecting the capital city of Nicosia."

[MarMema]

+memory eternal+

[Silas]

This area look familiar?

http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/medsea.htm

[Robe]

OK.. here's the poop !!!! (I'll try to keep it simple for the non tech types , so my explanation my not be EXACTLY techinacaly correct..)

The A/C and Cabin pressuration systems are interconnected In the engine( compressor section) the are a number of pick ups called p1, p2 etc,since the compressor is made in stages(each compressor turbine ring)the P1 stage would be the pick up from the 1st or the lowest/coldest section. As you go back , the compressed air gets hotter. it then passes into the ignition chamber of the engine.

Theses are called engine BLEEDS, one (I know there's more that one) feeds two AIR CONDITIONING PACKS

APU or engine P5 and if necessary P9 stage bleed air (hot) is pre-cooled by fan air before entering the pack. Inside the pack, bleed air is cooled by ram air through heat exchangers and an air cycle machine. A water separator collects water condensed by the cooling process to avoid icing.

Cabin Pressuration Panel B-373

In flight: If one pack fails with the pack switches in AUTO, the other will regulate to high flow (unless flaps are down).

If you dispatch with one pack inoperative, then max altitude is FL250. If a pack fails when above this level, then you may continue at the higher level.

This photo shows the location of the two air conditioning packs underneath the aircraft. Notice that the two ram air inlets have their deflector doors retracted because the aircraft is in-flight (see logic table below). The packs are accessed through the two large access panels between the deflector doors and the wheel well, these panels are hinged inboard. Aft of the access panels are the ram air exit louvres which give you a nice warm blast on your legs when you are stood in the wheel well doing a walk-around on a cold winter day!

As you can see the air (pressure) comming from the engines is never introduced in to the cabbin, it just heats the PACKS and is dumped overboard. So you can't have any outside "BAD AIR" in the cabin !

When the pilot is out of the cockpit it is required that the Co-pilot don the oxegin mask If a loss of pressuration was to occur at least one of the crew would be fuctioning As soon as the bells and whistles go off in a DECOM, the first thing done is the crew dons thier masks retards the powerlevers and desends.!

I find it very hard to belive that a simple LOSS of pressuration caused this Crash

Here are the Schematice of the A/C system

My 2 Cents!

Robe

[TheForceOfOne]

Lets wait to see what is on the black box recorders. They have recovered both as I understand it.

[MarMema]

ping

[silentknight]

Tin hats for everyone. This plane was not hijacked. It was mechanical. There were text messages sent out saying that everyone was freezing cold. The pilots had passed out. Decomp problem. Just because a plane crashes doesn't mean that it is terrorism. Geesh

Almost without fail when something happens everyone starts yelling - TERRORIST - TERRORIST -

Most of the time it is not terrorism.

[COEXERJ145]

Just because a plane crashes doesn't mean that it is terrorism.

On Free Republic, it is always terrorism in the minds of some and to say otherwise bring about vicious attacks.

[Ditter]

>"doubled up on the flight deck">>>

Tourista?Poisoned?

[ican'tbelieveit]

FNC reported that. The copilot was slumped over the controls and no sign of the pilot. Possibly the seating arrangement led to that conclusion. And didn't the passenger text that the pilot was blue?

[Silas]

And the fact that this island is being fought over by Muslims vs. Christians doesn't enter into your mind? How many Muslims were on the plane, headed to Greece/Prague? Will your mind allow these questions to be considered?


There are none so blind as those who will not see.

[COEXERJ145]

FNC reported that. The copilot was slumped over the controls and no sign of the pilot. Possibly the seating arrangement led to that conclusion. And didn't the passenger text that the pilot was blue?

Turning blue is usually a symoton of severe hypoxia. One theory is that when the aircraft suffered some kind of decompression, the pilot and co-pilot put on their oxygen masks (which are fed from a bottle of compressed oxygen, not a chemical generator like the passengers) but something was wrong with their supply. The co-pilot passed out first and then the pilot realized what was happening and tried to reach one of the portable oxygen bottles in the cabin but didn't make it. The aircraft, flying on autopilot, continued until for some reason went into a dive and crashed.

[Walkingfeather]

Well they may have seen someone flying the plane.... (no way to read his ID badge) he just happened to fly it into a mountain.

[John W]

Well, some of that is prompted by people's opinion that our government-for that matter all governments-are mostly concerned with "crowd control", all of us "subjects" being "the crowd".Since we scare them more than terrorists, some worry they might lie to us in the process of attempting to maintain that control.

[SampleMan]

If someone in a locked room doesn't respond, what would your assumption be?

[cgk]

This is very strange! Blue skin indicates cyanosis - loss of oxygen brought on by a number of factors, many of which occur in flight (e.g. high altitude/cold), but which occur outside the plane, not in the protected cabins. There are also pesticide poisonings which produce blue skin... Could it be they were gassed?

[firewalk]

If someone in a locked room doesn't respond, what would your assumption be?

If that 'locked room' is a cockpit on a plane
(especially after September 11 2001)
that they were dead...or on their way there

[SweetCaroline]

bttt

[brooklin]

Heads up

[beyond the sea]

I started that thread, and I think it was terrorism. Check out post # 38 over there.

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