Posted on 08/14/2005 1:48:03 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Two people tried to take the controls of the Cypriot Boeing 737 passenger jet before it crashed near Athens on Sunday killing all 121 people on board, a Greek government spokesman said.
Pilots of two Greek air force F16 fighters that were scrambled to investigate after the doomed aircraft lost contact saw the two people trying to assume control in the cockpit during the final approach, Theodore Roussopoulos said.
"They saw two people in the cockpit, we don't know if they were crew members or passengers, appearing to want to take over the controls," he said after a government meeting called to discuss the accident. The two pilots had initially seen "the co-pilot slumped over and perhaps unconscious and the pilot not in his seat", he added.
They had also reported that oxygen masks were "activated" in the cabin, he said.The plane crashed in woodland on a hillside at Varnava, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) northeast of the Greek capital.
Uh, I just asked if there were Greeks in Iraq. If there aren't, it's probably not terrorism. So there!
Sounds like faulty oxygen system in the cockpit. The crew oxygen system is in tanks, the passenger system is oxygen generators which are burned off a "candle" and provides the passenger with oxygen. The passengers probably used up all their emergency oxygen (its not very much), and froze to death, the pilots, unable to descend the plane, due to being passed out.
Had the plane been an airbus, you would be reading all kinds of hyperactive posts about how the french build lousy planes and all that.
Those same people clam up when a Boeing plane crashes.
Sounds to me like bad maintenance, and an unfortunate cascade of events.
> Just like Payne Stewart
Could be, except that airliners have more redundancy
for pressurization failures, unless maintenance is
criminally negligent ...
... and reports have it that this a/c had a history
of air conditioning and press system problems. Why
didn't the flight crew drop below 15,000 ft. when the
masks popped? Perhaps dealing with a balky press system
was "routine" for them.
The DFDR has been recovered. The CVR may show up.
Unless they also were inop to due maint, something
may be learned.
So far, this doesn't look like terrorism.
Unless you intended to be sarcastic, this statement is based upon the flawed assumption that terrorists are actually motivated by who has troops in Iraq. They only say that when the liberal media is around to lap it up....but it's not their real motivation.
Mr. Kallstrom, your TWA 800 coverup skills are required.
Paging James Kallstrom.
If the operating crew knew they had a pressurization problem, common sense and emergency operations procedure dictated they should have immediately began an emergency descent down to an acceptable altitude. Sounds as if the crew was not on top of the problem. On the other hand, a knowledgable terrorist could have done away with the crew, locked the aircraft through the auto pilot at an unsafe altitude, and caused a rapid decompression with a small explosion rupturing the fuselage. This kind of act would disguise the nature of a terrorist act. However, IMHO, crew failure to properly respond to the discrepency via standard operating procedure was the culprit. What a shame with all this loss of life!!!
I saw one report that said that some of the bodies at the crash site were still wearing oxygen masks.
I wouldn't be thrilled with a fully robotic flight but there really does need to be a way to take control of these planes and land them from the ground.
Why did the pilots pass out and not the passengers? How did the passengers get access to the cockpit?
Well, if it was Islamofacists, then they're pretty stupid- which I don't think they are. In fact, it would help our cause if it was terrorists. It would tell people like the French (in the words of the late, great Harold Washington), "You can run, but you can't hide".
I don't know that it was terrorists, and there seems to be some evidence that suggests it wasn't. I was just pointing out that discounting terrorists based upon who has troops in Iraq is not reasonable.
I believe that terrorism was already dismissed !
Nothing to see here folks - move on....
And I was trying to point out if Islamist terrorists start attacking countries who don't have troops in Iraq, they made the biggest mistake of their lives- which I don't think they'd do.
Anyone remember the pre-911 "suicide" crash of a Turkish pilot who took a plane down with all hands? Before the Islamofacist revolution, we all just shrugged it off as an unbalanced madman, but you gotta wonder these days...
I think he was Egyptian.
Non sequitor, do not have to be linked. Islamic terror happens for its own reasons.
The Egyptians have troops in Iraq?
That was Egyptair, and it has nothing to do with this crash.
Pilots are people, sometimes they flip out, its happened before.
Here's another one.
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