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.
Anybody who has a recent copy of Flight Simulator knows that it would certainly be trivial for ground control personnel to verbally walk a non-pilot through a bit of autopilot programming and have the plane fly itself to the best airport.
They almost wouldn't even have to sit in the pilot's seat to do it, although it would be much more comfortable than leaning over the throttles.
Having said that, I'm certain that the problem was at a much higher level with limited breathable air/oxygen having taken down the pilots in the first place.
But contrary to all of the Hollyweird "pilots are dead, passenger/stew has to land the plane" movies, the new aircraft can literally be programmed to do about everything except taxi to the correct gate after touchdown. And I'm not denigrating the skills or needs of the pilots, just that the avionics and control has become so sophisticated that the planes can literally "fly themselves"- with the proper info input.
Maybe some of the real pilot FReepers can lend their input here.
I was told by a commercial pilot many years ago that, all things being equal, you could tell when the computer landed the plane and when the pilot did... the computer flew the plane onto the ground resulting in a rougher landing; the pilot would flare out and make a soft touchdown, softer than the computer's. YMMV, of course, depending upon many variables.
question to any pilots: If the boeing autopilot is turned on, can the plane be controlled by the "hand controlls" or are they locked out?
Maybe it was shot down....that would explain all the misinformation.....
Sounds like something worth looking into. And if the plane is taken over by terrorists, you could override their ability to fly the plane and fly it from the ground.
My wife was born in Limassol
presently in South Cyprus
but was forced to move north
during the events of 1974.
Fortunately now the people can move
relatively freely
from one side of the island
to the other.
When we return to Cyprus
in the summer
we visit both north and south
and find them both pleasant.
> And if the plane is taken over by terrorists, you
> could override their ability to fly the plane and
> fly it from the ground.
And if the override system itself is hacked, then the
cutthroat cultists don't even need to be on the plane.
Benefits.
Hazards.
Both abound everywhere you look.
Must have been two little ole ladies who had somehow escaped the inspection line at the airport. Must not profile donchaknow! Sarcasm aside, if this was Islamic terrorists , which I suspect it was, we will never be told.
did it have a depressurized inncident that led to a crash? A lot of fail safes must fail for this to happen. I would imagine they didnt last year. why not?
Nothing changes if you don't conceptualize.
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