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.
Again, read my posts. At this point in time, it hurts the Islamists' cause to attack countries who are not allied with the U.S. in Iraq. You're right, they may do it anyway, but I don't think they're that stupid.
"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"
Like when the entire tail section broke off the Airbus in NYC just after 9/11? This doesn't sound like a problem with the manufacturer, more like bad maitenance
I'm suspicious, not saying it is terrorism. They bombed Egypt a few weeks ago...correct?
You're right. But there's a different standard applied to Islamic countries whose governments are allied with the U.S.- they're considered traitors by the Islamists.
Now, when it comes to the west (and I consider Greece a western country), the Islamists know they can't start telling the likes of Spain or even France (although it's close) they can't be allied with the U.S. period! This would defeat the whole purpose of extorting countries from sticking with us in Iraq. Of course (somewhere down the road), once they're successful in forcing them out of Iraq (or even joining in the first place), the Islamists certainly won't have any compunction telling them they can't have U.S. bases or any military alliances at all with America.
"The passengers probably used up all their emergency oxygen (its not very much), and froze to death"
Now that's a scary statement....how long would you have oxygen flow in the passenger cabin?
I wonder if one person was able to TM his cousin, the pilots never noticed any signals(waving, etc.) from other passengers? I guess the pilots visually scanned the windows. Or maybe the 'texter' guy noticed the F-16s and assumed pilots were not responding after a while. There was a report of 2 persons trying to take control of the plane, why wouldn't one of them make a signal or some sort of alert. Im sure they would have noticed the fighter planes.
Remember all the planes that fell out of the sky during Clinton's reign?
Seems to me none of them were mechanical, and all of them were terrorist related.
We've had maybe one accident since 9/11, and the other crashes (very few, by the way) have been overseas.
This stinks of hijacking.
Fox had an airline specialist who said that the oxygen is depleted in the cockpit faster than the cabin of the plane.
"Passengers should not have been able to access the cockpit."
Cockpits have been accessible to passengers in many instances, other than in the United States. About 25 years ago I had the neat experience of being allowed in the cockpit of a DC-10 on a non-stop London to Los Angeles flight. We were over Greenland at the time. That plane was a British carrier, though not BA.
There likely is less accessibility now, post 9-11, but I would guess that not all airlines of all countries lock the cocpit door.
They could be upset about any number of things. It does not seem like a terrorist attack.
We would also have to look at why a free cyprus flight would be attacked.
Test run?
Northern occupied cyprus must be a VERY unsecure location. Do we really want planes full of fuel leaving from there?
The F-16 pilots saw passengers on the flight deck. Somebody was functional. Maybe they had some Bolivians, or some Swiss or Tyrolian residents aboard.
It was a 737-300, and it had a depressurization incident on it last year.
The plane flew from Southern Cyprus.
I am in Northern occupied Cyprus at the moment.
The weather is beautiful and the beaches are packed with tourists.
I hope you are having a fine summer too.
Canadians go to cuba too. They enjoy the weather while people eat bannan peals to suplement their food rations.
Sounds to me like the oxygen worked for the passengers but not for the crew. Unfortunately, oxygen is only designed to last a few minutes until the plane descends to a safer altitude. Sounds like the crew died before getting there.
"They", are working real hard to bury this one....first the pilot is slumped over the controls and now we have people fighting on the flight deck....hmmmmmm!!!!
But they have. They've been fighting Russians in Chechnya, they've killed in Malaysia, they kill in Cambodia, they kill people in china, they kill people in Uzbekistan...they killed Americans in NY BEFORE we were in Iraq. So my point is, it's missing the facts to believe there is any real causality between Iraq and Islamofacist terrorists.
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