Brain cells are extremely sensitive to a lack of oxygen. Some brain cells start dying less than 5 minutes after their oxygen supply disappears. As a result, brain hypoxia can rapidly cause severe brain damage or death.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001435.htm
I hope that if this is what indeed happened that these passengers were already asleep(Since it was 1am most of them would have been sleeping anyway) and that they didnt feel a thing..so where are the bodies, in some mass grave somewhere? I doubt they would have just dumped them in the ocean, bodies float..even Laci Peterson after being missing for six months eventually floated, so did her unborn child
So by the time they died, they were all DemocRATs?