737 Crash Near Athens

[falcon20driver]

They said the F/O was slumped over the yoke. Would that cause enough of a force to push it forward and make it go into CWS mode?

I don't know, I don't even know if hitting the trim will knock the autopilot off in a 737-300, it does kick the autopilot off in the Falcon 20. Getting the nose down should be the 1st priority in an emergency descent is something a Falcon instructor told me during training and it seems like it makes sense, anyway you can hit the trim with one hand and reach for the mask with the other at the same time.

 

[EagleRJ]

-The reinforced cockpit doors are only on aircraft that fly into the US and some European countries. A domestic Greek airline would not have been required to have a new door.

-Some passengers were alive and moving around, while others were frozen solid? I'll go ahead and raise the B.S. flag on that.

-It was a reletively short flight from Cyprus to Athens, and the plane was only cruising at 34,000'. TUC for a healthy adult is almost a minute there, and it isn't that cold.

-Some foreign airlines that do not operate into the US or Europe employ VERY inexperienced First Officers. They frequently do not ever fly the aircraft, nor do they have any say whatsoever in the cockpit. The only reason they are there is ICAO regulations.
I wonder if the FO's response to the flashing lights, Master Warning, and cabin altitude horn was "Captain, get up here! Captain? What should I do?".

 

[falcon20driver]

The CVR and FDR should be interesting.

 

[YGBSM]

I wouldn't quite say frozen solid in an hour and a half is too unreasonable at the air temp at 35K'. Given standard temps, and estimating 30*C at the surface, standard decrease in temp would mean approximatly -40* at altitude. I don't see it taking all that long for a human body exposed to that temp to freeze.

I see that you also fly the 182 RG. Now that you mention it, I have noticed the same temperatures at this time of year at FL 350. Very suspicious.

 

[Donsa320]

-The reinforced cockpit doors are only on aircraft that fly into the US and some European countries. A domestic Greek airline would not have been required to have a new door.

.

They had recently bought the airplane from a German carrier, would that change your mind about the door?

 

[VampyreGTX]

I see that you also fly the 182 RG. Now that you mention it, I have noticed the same temperatures at this time of year at FL 350. Very suspicious.

What does my flying a 182RG have anything to do with what I know about weather? I was using STANDARD temp decrease per a given altitude. Just pulling up the various winds aloft forecasts for different sectors of the US for today, I'm showing a temp of -41 to -50 for FL340, even colder than what I estimated. There was also a UA flight over texas about an hour ago that has a pirep listing the temp at FL380 of -50.... and another over Kansas at FL330 of -41.

Weather was one of my strong points during my training and I've studied up a lot of weather forecasting in the last few years.

Now how can a human body freeze completely when exposed to -40* for 1.5 hours? At around -44* F. (almost identical point for C readings) human flesh can freeze in as little time as one minute. Factors like stored energy, your own natural heating (from metabolism differences), movement (shivering alone increase natural heat production 5 fold) etc. will effect this. However, I doubt any of the passengers were dressed for anything colder than 70 or so, given they were flying from Cypress to Athens. So the people moving around the cabin, may have lasted longer in the cold, while those that remained in their seats, or lost consciousness early, did in reality freeze to the bone. Also, peoples metabolism in warm climates cannot handle the extra heating requirements of extreme cold temps. Compare the metabolism of a resident of alaska or siberia to someone from cypruss, and I guarantee you they will handle extreme cold much differently.

 

[Swede]

-

-It was a reletively short flight from Cyprus to Athens, and the plane was only cruising at 34,000'. TUC for a healthy adult is almost a minute there, and it isn't that cold.

TUC varies with the rate of depressurization. If it's explosive, it's MUCH faster than a gradual depressurization. There was a C141 a while back where I believe 3 out of 4 guys in or near the cockpit didn't get the masks on in time, and the 4th guy BARELY got his on. Guy #4 saved the ship and all their lives. I need to look up details, I'm just going by memory right now.

 

[CrewResearch]

737 crash near ATH

I just read the following on the Washington Post website. Any opinions on the issues raised here?

-------------------------------------------------------

Greek Crash Puzzles U.S. Aviation Experts



[size=-1]By LESLIE MILLER
The Associated Press
Monday, August 15, 2005; 8:16 PM
[/size]

WASHINGTON -- U.S. aviation experts say they can't understand the behavior of the flight crew aboard a Cypriot airliner that crashed north of Athens after flying on autopilot for what could have been hours.

Early reports indicated the Helios Airways jet lost cabin pressure. Temperatures and oxygen levels would have plummeted and left everyone aboard unconscious and freezing to death as the plane flew on autopilot long before it crashed, experts said Monday.

But if there had been a sudden decompression, experts say, the pilots and the flight attendants for some reason didn't react the way they were trained to.

"It's odd," said Terry McVenes, executive air safety chairman for the Air Line Pilots Association, International. "It's a very rare event to even have a pressurization problem and in general crews are very well trained to deal with it."

The plane was fairly new, a Boeing 737-300 delivered in January 1998, according to company spokesman Jim Proulx. The flight data recorder that came with the aircraft records 128 kinds of data about the plane, he said.

Investigators were sending the plane's data and cockpit voice recorders to France for expert examinations.

The aircraft flew into Greek airspace, but air traffic controllers couldn't raise the pilots on the radio and fighter jets intercepted the plane, flying at 34,000 feet.

The fighter pilots saw that the airline pilot wasn't in the cockpit, the co-pilot was slumped over his seat and oxygen masks dangled, government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos said. He said the air force pilots also saw two people possibly trying to take control of the plane.

It is that sequence of events that puzzles aviation experts.

Warnings should go off if an airliner suddenly loses pressure, and pilots are trained to immediately put their oxygen masks on and dive to about 12,000 feet, where there's enough oxygen for people to breathe, they say.

If a cabin loses pressure suddenly, passengers and flight crew have only seconds to put on oxygen masks before losing consciousness. Death would follow quickly.

The chief Athens coroner, though, said at least six of the victims were alive at the time of the crash.

The pilots also didn't report any windows out or holes in the fuselage, the most likely causes of a catastrophic loss of pressure, said Bill Waldock, an aviation safety professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona.

Another clue to a sudden pressure loss would have been frost on the windows because it's so cold at 34,000 feet, said Waldock.

If the fighter pilots could see into the cockpit, the windows couldn't have been iced over, as they were in the 1999 crash of a Learjet 35 that killed golfer Payne Stewart. Investigators blamed that crash on a sudden decompression.

Paul Czysz, emeritus professor of aerospace engineering at St. Louis University, wonders why the co-pilot was slumped over.

"He couldn't have been unconscious for a small decompression at 34,000 feet," Czysz said. "Something's amiss."

The pilot and the co-pilot would have had five times as much oxygen as the passengers, he said.

"Even if the pressurization system was failing, it doesn't fail instantaneously. Even if it goes fast, you can seal the cabin, you've got all the oxygen in the cabin to breathe, you've got the masks and you've got plenty of time to get to 12,000 feet," Czysz said.

Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said it's possible the oxygen in the cockpit failed. He noted that the NTSB has been concerned about the ability of pilots to get their masks on quickly enough.

"The accident did not have to occur," Hall said. "It has to be either a training issue or an equipment issue."

He's worried that the answer won't be found because the cockpit voice recorder probably recorded over itself after 30 minutes. Since the plane was in the air on autopilot for so long, it probably won't provide any information, he said.

© 2005 The Associated Press

 

[Sam Snead]

So... there was no action taken on the part of the flight deck crew to initiate ANY sort of descent.... but if a fuel fire ensued after the impact, then the descent was not caused by absolute starvation.

I am ignorant of the fuel system in the 737-300, but is the prevailing theory now that they ran some tanks dry, which flamed out the engines, causing the eventually catastrophic descent?

And what was the reason the flightcrew was incapacitated but there were "people in the cockpit attempting" to do something; flight attendants? Deadheading pilots?

I was interested to read all the posts about the FMC, VNAV, etc, but is it anyone's opinion that one of the aforementioned "people" were monkying around with the yoke and goodness knows what else?

What's more, the statement about "frozen solid" bodies sounds bogus. I'm sure the body parts were cold, perhaps even very cold. But I doubt the coroner had already conducted autopsies and sliced through some part and seen ice crystals.

Please correct errors in my logic and my minimal memory of all 77 posts on this topic.

 

[ms6073]

but if a fuel fire ensued after the impact, then the descent was not caused by absolute starvation.

I am ignorant of the fuel system in the 737-300, but is the prevailing theory now that they ran some tanks dry, which flamed out the engines, causing the eventually catastrophic descent?.

Without adding to the speculation, I do not think the basic fuel systems for the various 737 series aircraft have changed much over the years. Here is a link to a fuel system schematic that should apply to a -300 series aircraft: http://www.b737.org.uk/schemefuel.gif

Here is a link to a site that has a moderate amount of systems information for the various 737 systems (including the fuel system): http://www.b737.org.uk/fuel.htm