If you ever fly you NEED to read this for your safety

SPOILER/WARNING

What comes in the next post may look scary for those nervous of flying, but its purpose is simply to make us a bit safer by being more aware of the importance of remembering airline emergency instructions with regard to oxygen masks, and of obeying them quickly and accurately.

I had no idea the time was so short. I can hold my breath for a minute or more - I would have guessed I had that long.

The accident reported is a freak - I don't think its ever happened to a civil airliner before.

So don't worry. But if you have real difficulties with flying, maybe better to not read the next post.






























SPOILER END

Near Athens Greece 121 people in a Boeing 737 just died.
Frozen to death.
The plane was apparently flying at 35000 feet, at which height every plane needs to be kept pumped full of pressurised air because there is so little outside.

First indications are that the following sequence of events may have occurred:
1. The pilot was absent from his seat.
2. Something caused very rapid or even "explosive" decompression. Doesn't need to be a bomb. Just the pressurised air escapes very rapidly from some sort of burst or rupture.
3. Oxygen masks are supposed to drop instantly from the ceiling. It seems that they did, as reports say the dead were all wearing them, and others were hanging in the aircraft wreckage.
4. The passengers therefore were OK at first.
5. Yet the military jets sent to investigate, on their first pass, saw only the copilot, unconscious over his controls.
6. The critical point is, it seems that at 35000 feet you must get oxygen within 15-20seconds or you go unconscious. (Internet searches will give you slightly variable figures).
7. I assume the copilot was slow to react, fumbled his mask, or misunderstood what was happening until it was too late - and he blacked out.
8. If the captain was in the john, or walking down the corridor, it might explain why he never made it back to the cockpit either. Maybe there wasn't a free mask near enough.
9. Anyway - no-one at the controls.
10. Everybody still alive - anyone who takes off their mask - 15secs to blackout.
11. The plane is on autopilot - it flies serenely on, still at 35000 feet. No more warm pressurised air - temperature begins to drop.
12. All it needs is for someone to disengage the autopilot, and descend to a height where it is warmer, with more air. Standard drill. But who?
13. Military second pass. They see two passengers in the cockpit, struggling with the controls.
14. Pretty smart, they must have hopped from mask to mask. Maybe they didn't know how to turn off the autopilot (which is strange, I thought they normally switch out when you move the control column.) Or maybe they couldn't get the oxygen sorted.
15. So the plane flew on. At 35000 feet.
16. A passenger sent a text message saying the pilot was blue, and they were all freezing to death. They did.
17 The military escorted it until it apparently ran out of fuel, descended and fragmented on a greek hillside. Or perhaps they tipped the wing.

Overall a tragedy so apalling it's worthy of a greek play.

Why do I post this sad tale ?

Because I had no idea the time to get your mask on was so short. I've had three children with me often in the past, and it would need military precision and speed.

Assuming the pilot is OK, this is what you must do.
a) Get your own mask on. You MUST be conscious to save them.
b) Now the kids. If they are panicking or unruly, stay calm. Mask which you can. Any you can't get a mask onto, just wait.
c) Once they are unconscious, they'll keep still. Just get the mask on then. You have probably 90 seconds of unconsciousness before they start coming to any harm. You'll do it much faster than that. With a mask they will quickly recover and be perfectly OK. If a child is away from her seat, you could try step-and-share-step-and-share down the aisle to get her, but you'd have to be cool and persuasive. The crew would try to stop you, and you could initiate a panic. Hopefully someone else will be looking after her.

Please note, I am only a private pilot, not trained on pressurized aircraft, and not a medic. This is just how I would handle it myself. But DONT take my word for it. It would be best for you to google around for yourself.

There are lots of links to find.
Here is an online calculator/test :
http://www.horizon-sfa.ch/CBT.htm
To use it, use your mouse to slide the little plane to your chosen height. This starts a timer (at the top) which runs till you lose consciousness. You can try to save yourself by dragging an oxygen mask to the face of the dummy, and turning on the oxygen bottle. But don't worry, its not realistic. Yours will just drop from the ceiling. From my other links, I think the time it gives is a bit too long.

Why did I post this ? Not to scare anyone. But because it had never entered my consciousness that time was so short. When the mask drops, don't hang about.

Forewarned is forearmed. Probably best to keep an eye out for empty seats as you walk down the gangway. I guess there is one in the john.

At a push, one could probably share a mask, taking alternate breaths as divers do. You haven't long to persuade the nearest person, though, have you ?

I think we need more comprehensive safety announcements. Maybe its in there, and Ive heard it so often it doesn't sink in any more. The point is - I had no idea the time was so short - and still shorter higher up. I'll take it very seriously from now on.

Note: The sequence of events above is my own deduction, from reading all the news reports. It may well be wrong inplaces, but it does fit all the facts. To know we'll probably have to wait six months till the enquiry. Unless they tell us what is in the recorder when they find it. Oh heck - they'll have the whole thing voice recorded ? Dreadful.

Maybe this is a reason for not having anti-hijack, locked-from-the-inside cockpit doors. Were they in fact introduced ?

Maybe every qualified pilot passenger should register with the crew? Even a private pilot could get a working 737 down at a push (if he had oxygen).

Just found an accident report
http://www.atsb.gov.au/aviation/occurs/occurs_detail.cfm?ID=367
(in which they thought they had decompressed when they had not).

It tells us two significant things. Probably the same, though this was a 747.
1. The cabin crew have portable oxygen systems so they can move around and help passengers. Explains how people got onto the flight deck.
2. The pilots masks do NOT drop automatically. Oxygen starts to flow when you pick them out of a box. Presumably a warning sounds/flashes, and you rely on your training to realise what to do.
"Removal of the oxygen mask from the stowage box initiated the flow of oxygen."

Maybe I'm boring you all ?

Interesting. I was talking to a friend about this and wondering if they had oxygen tanks like divers.

Incidentally, I started training as a private pilot but only had about 4 lessons while I was single before I became not single and couldn't afford the $250 per fortnight lessons.

Found this :

"The FAA takes the high harsh environment seriously in the regulations. Unless the aircraft is equipped with quick-donning masks when above FL350, one pilot is required to wear a mask even if the aircraft is pressurized. This is not required with a quick-don mask that must be able to be placed on the face using one hand, sealed, and supplying oxygen within five seconds. Naturally, most high-altitude aircraft have the quick-don masks, but if a crewmember leaves the flight deck above FL350, the other is required to don the mask. There isn't much time to respond and there are no prizes for second place. The rules also require a 10-minute supply of oxygen for pressurized aircraft flying above FL250 to provide time for an emergency descent"

So maybe the passengers ran out of oxygen before they froze........

Note: FL350 corresponds to approximately 35,000ft, and is the altitude of the aircraft in the incident.

or they had oxygen and still froze.

I wonder what they'll find when they work out where the pilot is. Actually they'd already know but I haven't seen it in the news yet.

Conspiracy? hmm.

I'm glad that Ellie posted the FAA FL350 requirements, which are largely required the world over as US Air Traffic Regulations need to be followed by most carriers that do any travel to the US or its territories.

The failure was egregious violation of policy and procedure by the crew of the Cypriot pilots and, like most aircraft failures, required a string of mistakes. The pilot should not have been out of the cockpit, the co-pilot should have used a mask, the flight crew should have been able to notice and respond to hypoxia, all the flight personnel should have noticed and responded to depressurization, etc. There is some (at present) wild conjecture by Cypriot Airlines that there were toxic air conditioning gasses released into the cabin which I don't think will be borne out as it is difficult to have the cabin both vented to the outside and full of toxic gas.

As someone inquired above, it is difficult to freeze a live mammal because us homeotherms have had to deal with ice ages and such. Air at 32000 AGL is roughly about -40 degrees (F or C) which is damn cold but survivable for short periods. As 2001: A Space Odyssey (correctly) showed, a human can even survive zero air pressure for shorter periods. My guess at present is that the people responsible for flying the plane were sleeping (also against regulation, oddly) or the captain went back to try and find the failure without properly preparing the co-pilot (also against regs.).

For those who would be inclined to find this alarming for themselves, please don't. Yes, it did happen, but required a slew of errors, probably some ground based ones as well. We may never know what happened, but even if Cyprus cannot complete a full analysis, I bet Boeing will (with the help of the NTSB or such). It has already been noted that the flight data recorders have been sent to France for analysis (presumably as Cyprus lacks the ability).

I saw the "demo" listed above which seemed pessimistic, but even if accurate, remember that you don't have to get your mask on in that period of time so long as the crew is doing their job. If so, upon depressurization, procedure is to drop immediately to 14000 AGL or lower which even a 737 can do in a couple minutes. Thus you may wind up with fainted but quickly recovering passengers.

Interestingly enough, standard cabin emergency oxygen "candles" were implicated as the first cause of the crash of ValuJet 592 in Florida in 1991 causing the aviation community to question whether the presence of incindiary devices on board is even warranted given that they are expected to never be needed.

Disclaimer: I am not a pilot but have studied for the FAA IFR test and logged a whopping four hours flight time before deciding it wasn't my cup of tea.

It is now being reported that the aircraft had notified ATC of problems with the air conditioning (read pressurisation) system a few minutes before loss of communication.

This makes it less likely that the pilots were caught unawares, and more likely that they made mistakes.

Since the regulations only require mask wearing when alone above FL350, presumably if they were at that altitude then theoretically they were not quite compelled. Small excuse.

It seems that many pilots are not aware how little time they may have, and that some emergency decompression checklists put some trouble-shooting actions before donning the mask. The authorities recommended changes in 2001.

I don't think the pilots masks dangle. They are totally different from the passenger ones, forcing pure oxygen into the lungs under pressure (instead of letting you just breath it in), and need a tight fit and good seal. Above about 25000 the ordinary ones can still leave you unconscious after a while, and everyone is a bit mentally impaired..

I learn that provided there is a quick emergency descent the passengers are in no real danger. Even if their own oxygen system fails totally, when they get to 10000ft they will all regain consciousness and be fine. Though they would probably think they were dying at the start.

Here is another very significant quote:
http://yarchive.net/air/airliners/emergency_oxygen.html

Chilling. No pun intended. Makes me even more nervous about stepping onto a plane.

The Greek Helios airline crash is still a mystery, though more information is filtering out.
It now seems everyone was alive, but not necessarily conscious, on impact.

That it flew until the fuel ran out, then crashed.

The odd things are these:

1. There is a report that the fighter pilots saw two people in the cockpit "struggling with the controls" long after they saw the pilot(s) unconscious.

2. One of the flight attendants is reported to have been a qualified pilot.

3. A map radar track has just been published. It shows no sign of anyone touching the controls at any stage. Everything it did is just what the autopilot should have been programmed to do, until the fuel ran out (which would disconnect it), and they all descended and crashed.

4. There should have been more than enough oxygen available in the cockpit for two people throughout.

The questions are - IF there were indeed two people in the cockpit, wouldn't one have been the qualified pilot ? and in any case, why did no-one (it seems) either use the radio, or touch the control column ?

IF the cockpit sighting is false, then a very disturbing possibility emerges. Under the post-911 changes, the cockpit door is armoured and locked. There is normally a code pad with an entry combination, but many airlines do not tell the flight attendants the number so that they cannot be coerced into revealing it.

Two unconscious pilots - locked door - dont know combination - can't break in - have someone capable of flying it with you........... Too ugly to think about.

Or maybe even the captain couldn't remember the combination, and was locked out with them, after going to the john ? At 34000ft he would have to keep a portable mask to his face all the time, and would get confused if he let it slip from his face for even a second or two. You also feel pretty ill, and are surrounded by everyones huge flatulence, due to the expansion of bodily gases if the decompression occurred at all quickly.

I'm beginning to think not many of you wish to know this. Shall I stop, or does anyone want to know what develops next ? I have special sources

I'd like to know Ellie, I'm on a plane a couple of times a month and I've been following the news on it.

I wanna know...but I'm just a sick puppy and curious.

Its getting more bizarre still. The greek coroners claim to have found blood on the control column etc from the male flight attendant who had a pilots license.

The Cockpit Voice Recorder has an alarm sounding continuously from a very early stage of the flight. It only takes a button press to silence it (from a conscious pilot).

The time it at which it sounded suggests that the aircraft remained completely unpressurised from the moment of take-off till this alarm sounded at 13,000ft (some dispute that it might be 10,000ft). The fact that it was left on sugests the pilots were already confused at this relatively low altitude. This is just possible.

There was a radio conversation with ground engineers about a "cooling failure" the crew were trying to solve. Towards the end of the conversation the captain began to confuse his words, and appeared unable to follow instructions. Nothing more was heard from him.

The cooling system and the pressurisation system are one and the same. It is likely that the plane was climbing at 2000ft per minute during this conversation.

This does not all fit together well. If he could access the cockpit , why did the steward/pilot wait circling at 34000ft on autopilot (which is proven) until the fuel was virtually gone (perhaps WAS gone) before attempting to fly it ? Too late. And any pilot would know how to use the radio.

No engines > no electricity > no hydraulic power > controls become massively heavy, takes two strong men to fly it.

This is all very odd.

Finally, some almost-official almost-facts :
http://www.flightinternational.com/Articles/2005/08/20/Navigation/177/201065/Helios+737+crashed+with+no+fuel+and+student+pilot+at+the+controls.html

When the F16's arrived after aircraft had circled at 34000ft in the -50deg temperature for over one hour on the autopilot, they found neither pilot functional, but a steward (and one other) in the cockpit.

The steward was a "student pilot with just a few hours training in a tiny cessna".

25 minutes later (sadly, too much later) the student pilot descends the aeroplane to attempt a landing, but the fuel runs out and engines stop at 7000ft They crash into the ground.

There was apparently no radio communication with the student pilot (we know that because the voice recorder has been recovered with no such communications on it).