Boeing 737 crash.... 121 dead.

[Nilsen]

"ATHENS, Greece (CNN) -- A Cypriot plane carrying 121 people has crashed north of Athens after losing contact with air traffic controllers, Greek officials said."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/08/14/greece.crash/index.html

[Dinger]

terrible stuff... I'm bound to know some people on that flight -- it's a small island.

[Nilsen]

oh my..

crossing my fingers and hoping for the best dinger

[mora]

The jet entered Greek air space about 10:30 a.m., but efforts by air traffic controllers to contact the pilots were futile. After some time, two Greek F-16s were scrambled, Greek Air Force spokesman Yiannis Papageorgiou told CNN.    As the F-16s approached, their pilots saw "no sign of life" in the cockpit, and the plane apparently was on autopilot, Papageorgiou said. They escorted the craft until it struck the mountain.    One of the F-16 pilots reported that the co-pilot appeared to be slumped in his seat and that he could not see the captain, a Greek Defense Ministry official told Reuters.

[101ABN]

holy crap!!  

[Fishu]

Lots of commercially operated plane crashes lately

First A340 in Canada, then ATR near Italy, then a Sikorsky chopper over here and now the 737.

[Maverick]

It sounds like a pressurization failure but there are alarms to warn of that situation. There is also far more capacity to pressurize than actually needed. I hope they can recover the boxes and get some info on this crash.

for the crew and passengers.

[CyranoAH]

Some reports say the crew and passage just froze to death due to a malfunction in the cabin air system.

Daniel

[mora]

There was some speculation on another website that the pilots oxygen supply might have been inoperative(vents turned off?) and the captain might have been overcome while going for the portable oxygen supply.

If the passengers oxygen supply was working it might explain the text messages, if it wasn't a hoax.

[Russian]

....

[Russian]

I read in Russian news that they froze to death! It wasn’t oxygen problem, but heating(?). Now why didn’t pilot get below 14000 feet….when he noticed this problem?

[mora]

Originally posted by Russian
I read in Russian news that they froze to death! It wasn’t oxygen problem, but heating(?). Now why didn’t pilot get below 14000 feet….when he noticed this problem?

I call BS on this one. How do you expect a plane to freeze so abruptly that the pilots didn't have time to communicate and make an emergency descent?

If there was a loss of cabin pressure and the crew would have been incapacitated immediately before doing an emergency descent, there would have been around 10 minutes supply of oxygen to pax. After that they would have gotten hypoxia. No one freezes to death in 10 minutes

[Yeager]

man thats just wierd as hell.  Where was the 2nd pilot?  I wonder if he went back to check on something in the cabin and got locked out when the pilot went tits up and couldnt get back in thanks to increased door hardness as a result of yomamma atta and his 19 co-fools.....

My sympathies to all those hurt by this.

[Toad]

Anyone know if this is an old 737 or a "next generation" 737?

Generally speaking both pilots should have had easy access to quick donning oxygen masks in the event of decompression.

There will be a lot more to this story.

[Fishu]

Apparently they were well below 14,000ft, because they managed to crash in a mountain.
Highest point in Greece is the Olympus mountain, at about 2,950 meters (= ~10,000ft).
It is said it crashed north of Athens, which could been lower.
I guess the pilots were able to set the plane to descent on auto to below 10,000ft, but the plane reached it too late.


Toad,

By the schedule it was -300
If it was NG instead (theres some speculation of it being NG) of the one in schedule, it would be the first NG to be written off due to crash.