There's a new thread up on the pilots' forum for those of you who are intrigued by the Helios crash mystery.
The baffled authorities have ruled out carbon monoxide poisoning, for which I've glad. The cabin would have been a bad scene. They've not ruled out other toxic fumes.
The black box containing the cabin voice recorder has been found. Originally they'd only found the outer case. Those things are made to withstand a tremendous impact, but evidently this one was a dud.
Also, some Greek papers are asking how a plane that made no radio contact could be flying around in their airspace for so long without authorities realizing there was an emergency. There's a little bit of security breach there, for sure.
UPDATE
Heads are indeed rolling over the security breach, with Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis late yesterday purging the leadership of the country's Civil Aviation Authority. He seems to be more worried about negligence lawsuits than anything else, though.
There's also news on Andreas Prodromou, the air steward who is believed to have tried to land the plane:
A flight attendant on board the doomed Cyprus airliner that crashed near Athens killing all 121 on board last week has been identified as the mystery person who apparently tried to land the plane at Athens airport, reports said on Saturday.
Andreas Prodromou, a trained small aircraft pilot standing in as cabin crew, and his flight attendant girlfriend, Haris Charalambou, have been identified as the pair in the cockpit from video footage taken by two F-16 fighter planes ordered to intercept the plane.
Blood discovered by investigators in the cockpit of the plane has undergone DNA testing and has been positively matched with Prodromou.
Brave man. He's a hero for trying.
He almost had it too, if the plane hadn't run out of gas.
(I don't know the reliability of the last link. It's a newspaper, but that might not mean much.UPDATE: Google works in mysterious ways - some paper in the UAE had this story this morning, while CNN didn't get it until this afternoon.)
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Previous posting:
Helios Flight
Helios Airways
Reading that forum explains mostly where my available internet time has been in the last number of days -- I started at the first thread and continued on with this latest one...immensely intersting and informative but hugely time consuming from the start!
Gotta' now go read the latest comments but I really thank you for the link at the start.
Posted by: -S- at August 20, 2005 01:36 AMSorry, Donnah, why my MT program created two (repeating) Trackbacks here, dunno.
Posted by: -S- at August 20, 2005 06:42 AMDon't worry about TBs. I don't care.
I've been hanging out over there too. They post the latest info and discuss all the theories.
A lot of it I can't understand, because it's too technical. But it's interesting knowing the cockpit and cabin have separate oxygen systems, how the security door works on the cockpit for how the crew got in, etc.
Yeah, I've learned a lot, too, like what frequency to turn to in an aircraft so that anyone, anywhere listening can receive a message! Ha, the things we learn on the internet, in this case, can save our lives, those around us if ever such a terrible thing occurs as a flight in trouble.
I've figured out almost all of what's written there, even the ongoing acronyms -- the only thing I can't keep up with is when people "run the numbers" with the mileage and such and know how much fuel would be onboard right down to the mile and, let's see...there's a very smart pilot on the forum who continues to make comments that are so intelligent, most everyone else cannot understand him and responds with anger (too bad, because despite his technical jargon, I do understand his points and find him the most sensible and of best reasoning there, along with some mechanic guy and another pilot from I think Germany and/or Iceland).
Certainly been educational because I now know that if there is ever a decompression at 35,000 feet or even 30,000 feet, passengers will not have adequate oxygen to continue them on while the plane makes an emergency dive in altitude. Sad, but terribly true after what I've read.
I still have so many questions...especially about these media articles now appearing that continue to reveal "coroner's reports" about the victims of the crash as being 'alive' at the moment of impact but what it doesn't say is whether or not they were BRAIN DEAD at the point of impact (their hearts and lungs would still be functioning but they'd be brain dead long before impact if they'd suffered decompression at their altitude when whatever event occured, around 30,000 or 35,000 feet [I can't recall as I type this, but I know it's one or the other]). The coroner could determine that but it's not being reported...knowing that they were brain dead at impact would be less painful for their families, is why I wish it would be included in the media coverage and which any coroner can determine at autopsy about the victims.
Posted by: -S- at August 20, 2005 07:37 PMI've thought of that too- that so far the coroner hasn't said anything about brain damage.
One thing- if the scenario is the cabin crew not realizing the cockpit crew were knocked-out until the endless circling began...why no communication until then? The were circling for what, a half hour?
If all that happened, why were the two flight attendants still up and at 'em?
Posted by: Donnah at August 20, 2005 08:32 PMThey only had fuel for an extra half-hour of scheduled flight?
Posted by: erik at August 21, 2005 10:31 AMIt was supposed to be a short trip and this was a cut-rate business operation. I guess they weren't carrying a whole lot of extra fuel.
Fuel starvation brought the plane down. With the student pilot at the controls.
were the remains of the pilot ever found? this has been one of the most curious parts of the mystery. i'm still baffled that terrorism/passenger intervention was almost completely ruled out.
Posted by: kat at August 21, 2005 11:29 AMNo, there are still three people unaccounted for, one of which is the pilot.
Posted by: Donnah at August 21, 2005 03:49 PMdonnah-are the identities/nationalities of the other 2 known? here's a wild stab: do you think it would have been possible for the pilot to have parachuted out before the crash? he wasn't seen in the cockpit before the plane went down.
Posted by: kat at August 21, 2005 05:18 PMIt's possible, but naturally, it's unlikely. Some people they found were truly mangled and the brush fires were put out by dumping salt water from helicopters. They're wondering if what was left of the other three people didn't get hosed away.
They've done 118 autopsies and so far, no Hans-Juergen Merten.
Yeah, I know. Besides terrorists, there've been so many cases of batshit crazy pilots, it leaps right to the front of your mind.
Posted by: Donnah at August 21, 2005 05:33 PM