I gotta admit, while Occam's Razor says this is just a mechanical failure (possibly compounded by pilot error?), when I heard "Cypriot airliner crashes in Greece," terrorism was the first thing I thought of. Greece and Turkey have had a long, long dispute over Cyprus, and there have been a lot of terrorist incidents over the years (including, I think, at least one airliner bombing).
I still think it's a mechanical failure, but for the life of me, I just can't see how a single mechanical failure could cause this. A 737 has two "packs," which are the pressurization and HVAC components, one driven off of each engine. I believe that one pack could supply sufficient pressure to both the cabin and the cockpit, if the other failed. (I don't know all the ins and outs of that...I'm not a pilot, sadly, just an airplane geek.) If the cockpit somehow depressurized, it'd blow the door open to the cabin and depressurize the rest of the plane, that door is not sealed against pressure like the outside doors of the aircraft.
There is a big gauge up on the overhead panel, on the copilot's side, that shows cabin altitude and differential pressure, and alarms go off if the cabin altitude goes over a certain amount. Those alarms go off, the pilots throw on their masks and descend to 10,000 feet or so, no ifs ands or buts. The pressurization systems, and the pilot procedures surrounding them, are designed to prevent something like this from happening.
As for some reports saying the plane was in a right turn when the F-16s found it...that sounds like maybe either it wasn't on autopilot, it got knocked off autopilot, or the #2 engine stalled out (which would yaw the plane to the right). Also, the F-16s reported people in the cockpit, and folks are asking how that could be...maybe the plane was in a descending spiral at that point, and it was at an altitude where people could breathe without assistance. That then begs the question of how somebody survived over an hour (until the F-16s got there) at FL350 with no oxygen, and could even make it to the cockpit.
It may sound morbid, but crash investigation fascinates me. Making order out of chaos, taking acres of twisted wreckage and being able to piece together exactly what happened when...it's the ultimate CSI, the ultimate forensics. And usually, something comes out of the investigation to increase safety.
}:-)4
?hush,hush,...?
and,.....how many 'right-wing' orthodox priests of various countries on board,...not to mention the 'Czhe___'-Moscow-_______ connections,...and...
:-(