Damn, what happened? Cabin pressure dropped ALL the way? Freeze to death? That's some horrible Sh*t.
Nah, they didn't freeze to death. They ran out of oxygen. That's the one bright side to this whole thing. Investigators believe everyone on the plane was already **** before it crashed. So odds are everybody on the plane just lost consciousness and died from lack of oxygen. So they most likely felt no pain. They just "went to sleep" and never woke back up.
Cypriot Plane's Black Boxes Sent to France
By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press Writer
Mon Aug 15, 6:14 AM ET
ATHENS, Greece - The flight data recorders from the Cypriot airliner that crashed outside Athens will be sent to France for examination to determine why it went down, possibly with all 121 people on board already ****, officials said Monday.
U.S. aviation experts were to help investigate Sunday's crash, which appeared to be caused by a technical failure that resulted in a high-altitude decompression. A transport official said the 115 passengers and six crew may have been **** when the plane went down.
Relatives of the ****, meanwhile, began to gather at an Athens' morgue to identify the remains of those on board.
Greek deputy Health Minister Giorgos Constantopoulos said there had been 21 children on board Helios Airways flight ZU522 from Cyprus to Athens, "all aged 4 and above." Greek and Cypriot officials had originally said there were 48 children on the plane. No explanation for the discrepancy was given.
In Cyprus, the pilots and crew of Helios Airways refused to fly Monday after reports that passengers had complained that the Helios Boeing 737 that crashed near Athens had experienced past technical problems. The company would not say why its crews were refusing to fly.
Greek state television quoted the Cyprus transport minister as saying the plane had decompression problems in the past. But a Helios representative said the plane had "no problems and was serviced just last week."
The Boeing 737 had been headed from Larnaca, Cyprus, to Athens International Airport when it crashed at 12:05 p.m. Sunday near Grammatiko, a village 25 miles north of the Greek capital.
The head of the Greek airline safety committee, Akrivos Tsolakis, said that the two "black boxes" — a data and cockpit voice recorder — recovered from the crash site would be sent to the French air safety investigators in Paris for further examination.
The voice recorder, Tsolakis said, was badly damaged by the crash and ensuing fire.
"It's in a bad state and, possibly, it won't give us the information we need," he said. "Both boxes will be sent to Paris where a French committee will help us and the foreign experts that are here to decode"
He expressed confidence that his committee would be able to reach a conclusion "in a few days, a very few days."
Tsolakis said Greek investigators were to be joined by U.S. experts following a request made by the American government because the aircraft was manufactured in the United States.
The pilots of the airliner had reported air conditioning system problems to Cyprus air traffic control about a half-hour after takeoff. Within minutes, after entering Greek air space over the Aegean, the Boeing 737 lost all radio contact. Two Greek F-16 fighter jets were dispatched soon afterward.
When the F-16s intercepted the plane at 34,000 feet, jet pilots could see the co-pilot slumped over his seat. The captain was not in the cockpit, and oxygen masks dangled inside the cabin, government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos said.
He said the jet pilots also saw two people possibly trying to take control of the plane; it was unclear if they were crew members or passengers. The plane apparently was on automatic pilot when it crashed, a Helios spokesman said.
"When a pilot has no communication with the control tower, the procedure dictates that other planes must accompany and help the plane land. Unfortunately, it appeared that the pilot was already **** as was, possibly, everyone else on the plane," Cyprus Transport Minister Haris Thrasou said.
At 34,000 feet — the altitude where the F-16 jets met the airliner — the effects of depressurization are swift, said David Kaminski Morrow, of the British-based Air Transport Intelligence magazine.
"If the aircraft is at 30,000 feet (9,000 meters), you don't stay conscious for long, maybe 15 to 30 seconds," he said. "But if you are down at 10,000 feet (3,000 meters), you can breathe for a lot longer."
Liz Verdier, a spokeswoman for Boeing, said the 737s, like all Boeing planes, are equipped with warning systems that alert pilots when decompression is occurring. She could not provide details of how the warning system works.
About 100 relatives arrived from Cyprus on at least one special flight from the eastern Mediterranean island and were taken to the morgue by bus. Others arrived in Athens from other parts of Greece to identify victims.
"I lost my son, his wife and my three grandchildren. I want those responsible for these flying cemeteries to be punished," Anastasios Koudas said at Athens' airport.
Deputy Health Minister Thanassis Yiannopoulos said 18 bodies had been transferred to the morgue. The other recognizable remains were being brought to the morgue while about 30 would be identified by DNA.
___
Associated Press Writers Alex Efty in Nicosia, Cyprus, and Derek Gatopoulos in Grammatiko, Greece, contributed to this story
Damn, what happened? Cabin pressure dropped ALL the way? Freeze to death? That's some horrible Sh*t.
Nah, they didn't freeze to death. They ran out of oxygen. That's the one bright side to this whole thing. Investigators believe everyone on the plane was already **** before it crashed. So odds are everybody on the plane just lost consciousness and died from lack of oxygen. So they most likely felt no pain. They just "went to sleep" and never woke back up.
...* my bad for laughing *
