Originally Posted by HomelessScientist
The conventional explanation for these unfortunate events (depressurization through a faulty air conditioning pack followed by a nonfunctional or contaminated pilot emergency oxygen supply) seems much more plausible, doesn't it? (Then again, maybe that's just what They want us to believe...)
Reuters is currently reporting:
Greek government spokesman Theodore Roussopoulos said the F-16 pilots sent to investigate reported that with the pilots out of action there may have been a last-gasp effort by others on the plane to bring it back under control.
"The situation was characterised renegade, meaning the aircraft was not under the control of the pilots," Roussopoulos told reporters, explaining how the crisis unfolded after the plane failed to make radio contact.
"At a later stage, the F-16s saw two individuals in the cockpit seemingly trying to regain control of the airplane," Roussoupoulos said.
"The F-16s also saw oxygen masks down when they got close to the aircraft. The aircraft was making continuous right-hand turns to show it had lost radio contact."
I don't understand how hypoxia (low oxygen) from a depressurization would selectively incapacitate the pilot and co-pilot, but not the "two individuals in the cockpit seemingly trying to regain control of the airplane."
A passenger on the doomed plane said in an SMS text to his cousin in Athens: "The pilot has turned blue. Cousin farewell, we're freezing."
Any hypothetical saboteurs skilled enough to undertake a mission this sophisticated could probably figure out how send a phony text message as a diversion, right?
Experts told Reuters it was extremely rare for a plane to lose oxygen, and that emergency systems should have kicked in.
"The pilots should have had their masks on," a retired British pilot who did not wish to be named told Reuters. "Why they didn't put them on is the big mystery."
"A loss of pressurisation in the cabin is in itself a rare event but to go as far as it incapacitates the pilot is hugely rare," the retired pilot said.
Greek media speculated a toxic gas from possible faulty air-conditioning could have incapacitated the two pilots before they knew they were in danger.
Toxic gas from a faulty A/C unit? Really?
And it's supposedly capable of selectively affecting just the pilot and copilot?
Has anything even remotely similar ever been reported? Wouldn't the FAA and Boeing have known about this danger long ago? 737s are old aircraft with zillions of logged miles.
(Is this theory any more plausible than my neighbor's sons's speculation about assassination-by-sabotage?)
One of the F-16 pilots said he could not see the captain in the cockpit and his co-pilot appeared to be slumped in his seat.
A spokesman for the European Aviation Safety Agency, Daniel Holtgen, based in Cologne, Germany, said the cause of the crash was likely to be a combination of factors:
"It is highly unlikely that the loss of cabin pressure alone would cause such an incident. There would have to be other contributing factors."
Comments, anyone?