Posted on 08/15/2005 8:47:22 AM PDT by devane617
ATHENS, Greece (CNN) -- Investigators were working to determine why a Cypriot plane apparently suffered a catastrophic loss of cabin pressure and slammed into a Greek mountain -- possibly with all 121 people on board already dead. All but two of the bodies have been recovered, a Greek government spokesman said Monday, and officials hope autopsies and cockpit recorders will hold clues to Sunday's crash of Helios Airways Flight 522. The autopsies were ordered to determine if the 115 passengers and six crew were already dead or oxygen-starved before the crash, the spokesman said. A Greek Defense Ministry source with access to the investigation told Reuters that most of the bodies recovered were "frozen solid."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
From a Google search of flash-freezing:
6. What is flash freezing?
I have been asked this question a million times over the years. Seafood should be frozen as soon as possible after being caught. However, you can actually ruin some species of fish by freezing it too quickly (to cold) as it bursts the cells in the flesh. You can freeze it too slowly as well. The best temperature is -40 with a -10 core temperature in less than 5 hours.
AS I said previously, hope they check to see who the maintenence crew were on the plane....Doesn't have to be a shoe bomber to get the job done, just a few pulled wires, loosened screws.....Of course it doesn't get the attention a of 9-11, but the result (dead innocent people) are the same.
I just checked the last 24 hours of the radiosonde for Nashville; it was -50+ at 9800 meters with the tropopause above.
I could check Greece, I guess.
What up dog! I'm in my forties, so my shizzle is kadizzle.
Advancing age just increases the penalty, sir.
Death Penalty by 50.
Well, I should have put the sarcasm tag in there... Dropping from 35000 wouldn't be comforting in the least. Just doing "power on" Stalls during my pilot years was enough to get me to "hurl"
> What type of sick SOB would make this type of hoax.
A Howard Stern fan?
I find the "!" on the end of this post a little disturbing, it reminds of an ambulance chaser type person?
Found a Nasa Interactive Atmosphere Simulator web page. I tells you the temp and air pressure of different altitudes.
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/atmosi.html
You don't have "a few minutes"; perhaps you have a few seconds at best.
I agree there are several systems also including sophisticated early warning systems to prevent just this happening, it's a mystery for sure
"I also cannot imagine a clothed body freezing solid in 20 seconds."
I agree that would be impossible
yes we are on the same page then :-)
Bingo ! that was my thought too, we will have to wait for the crash investigation for a definitive answer.
"Also, why were the pilots overcome so quickly when some passengers - apparently were not overcome for quite some time?"
Also consistent with the AC hypothesis, as the passenger area is a larger open space and would have taken longer to reach a critical density. However this does not explain the depressurization
Unless of course the pilot depressurized the plane for a reason. I assume that can be done in a manual way by the pilot. As a last ditch response to a critical situation the pilot may have actually pulled the plug.
That would mean about 0 degrees F at 30,000 feet, which is not even close to the temp required to freeze a human body solid in less than 18 hours. The flight was only into its second or third hour when the decompression happened. I don't believe it's possible that the bodies were "frozen solid."
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I agree with you regarding frozen solid. Some one is overstating the situation.
Regarding temp at 35,000 feet you formula needs to take in the WAG factor. Flown many times with outside temps below 40 minus.
I have seen no reliable information on flight height??
According to this site, http://www.drjack.info/INFO/analysis.html , the lapse rate is 5.4 degrees per 1000 feet. For 30kft thats -162 drop, for a final temp of -72 degrees.
Thanks cute.
You can breathe well above 11,000 feet; I don't think breathing is dangerously impaired until 18-20,000 feet. People around here climb Mt. Rainier without oxygen, and it's 14,000 feet.
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YOU ARE CORRECT
Wild speculation on my part, but my present guess is that the pilot's supplemental O2 supply didn't work, taking him out before the passengers. If he put on his mask when the instruments indicated a decrease in pressure, but while the air was still breathable, he could have gone before the passengers. Again, that is wild speculation without any factual support.
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Not wild at all. Payne Steward plane mishap was identical to this senero.
My line of thinking as well.
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