Where is Columbo when we need him?
Investigators of the Payne Stewart incident never concluded the speed of the decompression - whether it was slow or rapid. A commercial airliner's oxygen systems are automatic and should deploy when the cabin pressure exceeds a certain altitude - something not required of private jets. They also deploy for the pilots. At 35,000' the time of useful consciousness is from 30 to 60 seconds.
A rapid decompression could reduce that by half, though, if air is forced out of the lungs due to the decompression - source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_of_useful_consciousness
I also recall that Greek airline accident about ten years ago when the cabin pressurization got set on "manual," and caused everybody on board to black out. Since the autopilot was set, the aircraft just continued to fly until it ran out of fuel and crashed. Of course in that case they were still able to track the plane.
Where is Tom Clancy I say? =)
Exactly..dead people can’t turn off transponders..and you have to be extremely knowledgeable about planes to do so, so the pilots(Or someone else, like a hijacker) had to have turned them off..remember, all of the 9/11 hijackers, the second they took control of those planes what is the first thing they did, turn OFF the transponders
>> decompression ... happened, immediately killing everyone on board...
Well, it doesn’t “immediately kill”. TUC - time of useful consciousness is altitude dependent. At 35,000 feet, you can go from 30 to 60 seconds before you enter la-la land. A rapid decompression (i.e. a BIG hole in the fuselage) can cut that time in half. But still plenty of time to get over the “WTF was that?” and put on the mask.
FAA regulations require one pilot to wear the O2 mask above FL350 (35,000’). This is routinely ignored by aircrews.