Nothing to be alarmed about, as this is just a minor set back. The mechanical engineering staff, headed by James Kallestrom, should have it all worked out in a few weeks.
Build their gallows high
Posted on 08/14/2005 4:49:17 AM PDT by Gorons
Athens - A Cypriot Boeing 737 airliner with 121 people on board from Larnaca, Cyprus, crashed apparently pilotless on Sunday near Athens, a traffic controller at Athens international airport told AFP.
Just before the crash, airforce crew observed the airline's pilots doubled up in the cabin, the controller said.
A spokesperson for the Greek army chief-of-staff said hijacking "could not be ruled out".
"An act of piracy is likely," said the spokesperson, Gerassimos Kalpoyannakis. The pilots of the two F16 fighters that were sent up to escort the airliner before the crash "saw a situation that was not normal in the pilots' cabin."
Kalpoyannakis said the plane crashed at Varnava, an uninhabited area about 40 kilometres northeast of Athens and not on the Euboea peninsula as previously reported by the Athens control tower.
He said teams of rescue workers, fire-fighters and ambulances were on their way to the scene and that all the hospitals in the region had been placed on emergency status.
There was no immediate word on casualties.
"The plane has crashed," said Iannis Pantazatos, who was in charge of the Athens airport control tower. "The information was given to us by the air force, which sent two fighters to escort the aircraft."
Shortly before the plane crashed, Pantazatos told AFP: "The airport lost all contact with the plane, which should have landed in the late morning, and two air force planes sent up in reconnaissance found it flying above the Euboea peninsula, but they saw the pilots doubled up in the cabin."
"We do not know how the plane is flying. It is being escorted by the military planes and the airport is in a state of emergency." he said.
The Helios airways plane was reported to be carrying 115 passengers and six crew.
Helios, established in 1999, is the first private airline in Cyprus. It had a fleet of four Boeing 737 jets and operated flights to London, Athens, Sofia, Dublin and Strasbourg in France.
Gerassimos Kalpoyannakis - Let's see how many more announcements this person will be allowed to make in the future .. like .. none?
They are already covering up (ahem, not even trying to disclose) the F-16 facts in US web media.
If you read thru this thread, it seems to be mechanical failure of some sort............
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1463039/posts
Doubled up on the fight deck?
Yeah, I saw that thread. But I thought it might be prudent to stick this one out by it's lonesome since there is a name with a summary and rank. :) (ie: Other than media dawgs)
developing
Fox is reporting that there might have been an oxygen problem that caused the pilots to pass out. ( Remember Payne Streart's plane?)
Nothing to be alarmed about, as this is just a minor set back. The mechanical engineering staff, headed by James Kallestrom, should have it all worked out in a few weeks.
Build their gallows high
bttt
hah.
"Several witnesses said they saw the plane flying low over Athens' eastern coastline before disappearing out of sight and seconds later they heard a crash."
If it was flying low, why were they freezing? (As other threads have URLs from other news agencies that make these claims?)
The pilot doesn't radio in problems with the A/C and everything cuts out electronically (or with the radio) and freeze on site. Something was up. The spinsters are trying to decide which story to go with.
Lemme guess ...
I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say it was another gift to humanity from the "Religion of Peace".
By my recollection over the last ten years, the "Religion of Peace" has caused a lot more plane crashes than mechanical failures have caused.
They were dead. Onset of rigormortis.
That's my take.
Onset of rigor mortise
Turkish? They never got along...
I think I smell the stench of Islamopukes.
Mr. Freeze hijacked the plane? Actually, could this be caused by a change in cabin pressure?
For technical aspect/debate of cabin depressurization, read this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1463039/posts
One gent had a particularly interesting point:
#120:
To: leadpenny
Maybe, but something smells bad about this. Commercial pilots are trained, trained, and trained again what to do in this kind of situation. They've got oxygen masks immediately handy, and in the 737 they've got a gauge handy that shows them the relative altitude of the cabin (what altitude the cabin pressure is simulating), what the differential is between outside and inside, and they've also got alarms that go nuts if the cabin altitude goes over a certain figure.
If those alarms go off, they immediately call ATC, declare an emergency, and descend to under 14,000 feet as quickly as possible, which would take several minutes from 30,000+ feet. The oxygen masks have to be able to be donned in just a few seconds, and pilots practice it every year in training.
Also, a commercial jetliner is going to be flying about 10,000 feet lower than Stewart's jet was (I think he was up at FL450, 45,000 feet), which *should* extend the time of useful consciousness enough to let them at least call ATC and declare the emergency, and start down.
In order for something like this to happen I think two separate things have to go wrong--there has to be a pressurization failure somewhere on the airplane, *and* the backup oxygen systems, which use chemical generators (like what brought down that Valujet DC-9 in the Everglades), have to fail. If both of those happened, then yes, the pilots and passengers could conceivably pass out before the plane reached breathable altitudes. But, they *should* come back around when it does. Now, will they come back to consciousness in time to stop the plane from hitting the ground? Maybe, maybe not.
Something really, really, smells here. Especially since one news article mentions that a passenger text-messaged a relative before the crash that the pilots were unconscious. If true, that means the cabin had pressure, but the pilots were still unconscious or dead? Very fishy.
BTW, I'm not a pilot, just a wannabee and flight-sim geek. We need some real pilots in here to clarify.
}:-)4
Excellent point!
Sudden pressure decrease causes drop in temperature in a gas - it's the basis of most air conditioning systems. My question, though, is why would a passenger have the time and mental capacitiy to TEXT MESSAGE his cousin, when nobody was able to go to the cockpit and at least try to bring the plane in. That's the suspicious part to me. Why was the pilot reported unconscious by a passenger?
Another interesting thing about this other thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1463039/posts?page=38#38
Thursday, August 11, 2005
ANKARA - Turkish Daily News
Greece and Greek Cyprus may turn out to be the winners after the Israeli government urged its citizens to avoid Turkey's southern coast because of a clear terror threat. Reuters news agency quoted a Greek Tourism Ministry official as saying that Greece was picking up more visitors because of the situation in Turkey.
"Following the Israeli travel advisory against travel to Turkey, there is certainly potential for extra business, but being August it is difficult to absorb because our hotels are already fully booked" said a Greek Cypriot tourism official to Reuters.
An Israeli official said Turkey has captured militants linked to al-Qaeda who were planning to attack foreign tourists in the Mediterranean region, in what appears to be the reason behind a recent security warning for Israelis against traveling to Turkey's southern coast.
But separate press reports that militants had been detained were denied by the police yesterday.
Original URL:
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=20513
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