Helios flew for a very long time after the event. Turkish F16s were scrambled.
This happened in less than 10 minutes. There is no automation that would descend an A320 at more than 2,000 feet per minute from altitude unless intentionally directed by the crew, and if directed they were conscious. Even turning off the autopilot would not result in a steep descent like this.
A crew-initiated emergency descent would have descended at a lesser rate of descent, and that type of descent starts with the crew setting the floor,= altitude, which in the case of no terrain is never less than 10,000 MSL - and ALWAYS on autopilot. If the crew was cognizant of terrain, they would have set an even higher altitude. The terrain there is less than 10,000 MSL.
Far from me to question anyone on the Internet, but if you fly an Airbus outside of FlightSim, you know that there is an “Emergency Descent” setting that can be activated, in the case of cabin pressure loss.
And it’s been available since 1980.
Boeing required the mod in all of it’s aircraft years ago.
I wonder if ISIS will lay claim to this disaster, even if they didn’t do it?.............
I was going to chime in and mention that. But since you did, as an Airbus pilot perhaps you may be able to comment on something else that seems odd about this Germanwings incident - there is something about the debris field of this crash that seems unusual - either not big enough, or too large. Couldn't really identify a source of impact either, or any significant charring/scorching. Could you comment on that?