You're being facetious, aren't you? 
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.
............ the passengers were not "freezing"..... the one said they were "frozen" .....(in fear).
If I remember correctly, this specific 737-300 had experienced cabin pressurization problems very recently. It appears somebody at Helios Airways forgot to get the cabin pressurization system fixed and the result was this very unforunate tragedy.
Last year, a plane was found to have holes drilled thru the bathroom wall into the cabin. I'll see if I can find it.
Sure terrorism is ALWAYS on ALL of our minds. That doesn't mean that every event is a terrorist attack though.
There are OBVIOUS signs that this was mechanical. The text messages alone tell us that.
Wrong. The one passenger wrote...... "they were "frozen"........... not "freezing". It could have been "frozen in fear".
Don't use facts. This is Free Republic. It is terrorism as far as most are concerned. I'm sure most think the recent Air France crash was also terrorism.
---NO, that was said to come from a fighter pilot flying nearby. Bull if you ask me..
On Free Republic, every plane crash is a terrorist attack in the minds of many.
Heard it on the radio that a passenger sent a message before the crash that the pilots were unconscious. Maybe something was injected in the pilot cabin?
If this is the work of Islamofascists, then we've just witnessed that they now have a way around this safety measure.
Not good.
It's puzzling
There was speculation on the previously linked aviation.net thread that the crew's O2 supply might have been recharged with something other than aviation O2, either medical O2 or welder's oxygen, or simply not charged at all.
So the chain of events would have the cabin pressurization failing, the crew going on their O2 (and the pax going on their separate O2 system), and the crew either getting nothing due to frozen water, or getting contaminated O2 which was noxious, or getting nothing. This was apparently a causal factor in a previous incident: tank filled with medical O2 which had enough water vapor to freeze the line and/or valve when dispensed and cut of oxygen delivery.
BTW, they were apparently at FL340.
You're being facetious, aren't you?
I wish I was.
I find it very hard to belive that a simple LOSS of pressuration caused this Crash
I agree.
While that may be true ...
This ...
"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."
... from the posted article leads to what assumption at first glance?
It's best IMHO to start with an assumption that none of us have any idea what happened, and let the investigation go from there. The amount of speculation here is astounding, but then again, what would an Internet forum be without speculation. :-)
Most of the "speculation" here is based on the posted article.
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