Plane crashes north east of Athens

[B744skipper]

According to the newspaper today, one of the cabin crew was a qualified pilot who was working as a flight attendant whilst he looked for a pilot job. He was the one who tried to fly the aircraft to safety after the pilots collapsed. It said the aircraft just ran out of fuel and that is why it flew so long before crashing. It had been on autopilot before the fuel ran out. What a pity the fuel ran down, otherwise the steward might have been able to get the aircraft to safety and land in Athens.

If this is true, there must have been a problem with the fuel-system also. The aircraft was scheduled to fly to Athens, and it ran out of fuel just north of Athens. Even when the required reserves would have been used, the airline sure has been cutting edges when calculating fuel. Because when the aircraft would have landed normally, but needed to make a go-around, it could have gotten into serious fuel-problems.

Weird story...

[SN30952]

Possible again a fault in fueling? Like the Tunisair flight earlier this month

At actual fuelprices, are the airlines not calculating too sharp?
Every ton of fuel does cost extra, but it needs extra fuel to carry... on arrival, an extra ton of fuel is not longer 1 ton!

[waldova]

Where did this information come from that the plane went out of fuel? If this is true at least the F16 pilots should have noticed that the engines where not running anymore.

[Pluto777]

Newspapers write down all rumours they receive, anyway this accident was caused by lack of good maintenance. It seemed that there were already similar malfunctions mentionned, way before the accident !
Insiders, tell me, if malfunctions are discovered between the normal scheduled inspections, how are things solved ?
Suppose a plane lands in Heraklion with minor oil pressure loss on the engine 2 hydr. system, but the spare part is not available there. Will they keep the plane on the ground, or will they decide to accept the (small) risk and give clearance for the returnflight to brussels and then change the part ??
according to me, these decisions are up to the captain and the engineer, and that's were the "economical stress" from charter-company's nowadays, is far more higher then 10 years ago.

[Dude320]

Is there a chance that the F16 - shot them out of the sky to avaid heavy crash in Athens City ??

Anybody thought about this ? Or is this totally not possible ?

(After they have seen no cpt and f/o collapsed in cockpit) ??

[L-1011]

Is there a chance that the F16 - shot them out of the sky to avaid heavy crash in Athens City ??

Anybody thought about this ? Or is this totally not possible ?

(After they have seen no cpt and f/o collapsed in cockpit) ??

The F-16 certainly continued to escort the plane in case it would've posed a threat to population on the ground. But they definitely have not shot it down, and let it fall into unhabited terrain.
Although the F-16 are ready to shoot if necessary this is not an easy decision, and it is not taken prematurely. (at least in europe) Be sure that they would've shot it only had it manoeuvred towards the city of Athens, or habitated region. But in this case it did fly a straight path without suspect movement, so there was no reason...

ciao,
TriStar

[HorsePower]

Helios' general manager, Andrewas Drakos, said he did not know how long the pilot had worked for the airline.

How is this possible 8O !!!

Seb.

[janhuub]

I would really like to know what really happened hre.
If there would have been serious problems with the pressurisation system, and there were problems, otherwise the crew wouldn't have told ATC, why weren't they wearing their masks? Seems ike the first thing to do in case of serious problems.

Why didn't they turn back? They reported their problems 10 minutes after take off.

Why do they climb to 34000ft when they have pressurisation problems?

How did the aircraft descend? If the aurtopilot is tuned to 34000ft, it will stay there, unless somebody turns it off or selects another atlitude. or runs out of fuel.

[Avro]

How did the aircraft descend? If the aurtopilot is tuned to 34000ft, it will stay there, unless somebody turns it off or selects another atlitude. or runs out of fuel.

They found the body of one FA in the cockpit. She was probably trying to take control of the plane in vain. Now as far as I know when you pull or push the stick the atupilot won't disconnect but if you rotate the stick the autopilot will automatically disconnect. So if the FA came in the cockpit and tried to gain control by touching the stick, she might have disengaged the autopilot without knowing it !!

As for the other questions, there are many ???? indeed, and it'll take a lot of time to answer all of them.

Chris

[av8or_guy]

in my opinion atleast one F/A should know how to set the aircrafts autopilot. im not sure but aircraft can land by autopilot right?
if so then a flight attendant should know how to set the autopilot to the nearest airport to the aircrafts position.

[janhuub]

in my opinion atleast one F/A should know how to set the aircrafts autopilot. im not sure but aircraft can land by autopilot right?
if so then a flight attendant should know how to set the autopilot to the nearest airport to the aircrafts position.

Then you should have a crew of three. It's useless to have someone turn the knobs of the aotopilot, without them knowing anything else.

[Alistairbastian]

this is really bad !!!!
Aviation experts puzzled by clues in Greek disaster
Crews well trained to handle cabin decompression

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... ype=adfree

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 140_2.html

let hope and pray we see a crash free week !!!

[SN30952]

In a statement, Boeing said: "Boeing offers heartfelt condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of those who were lost on board the Helios Airways 737, which crashed August 14 near Athens, Greece.
Boeing is sending a team to provide technical assistance to the investigating authorities."

Cypriot police raided the Helios Airways offices in Larnaca: officers "carried out a search", there were no arrests and it is not known whether police had confiscated any material from the office.

There had been 21 children aboard ZU522. Initially, Greek and Cypriot officials had said there were 48 children on the plane. No explanation was given for the discrepancy.

The pilot's name was Hans-Juergen Merten, 58, of Berlin. The Cypriot co-pilot, Pambos Haralambous, was reportedly found in the cockpit. Helios Airways Chairman Andreas Drakos said the airline's crews were operating normally on Sunday, rejecting earlier reports that its pilots and crew were refusing to fly.

The plane took off from Cyprus at 9 a.m. Sunday. About a half-hour later, the pilots reported air-conditioning system problems to Cyprus air-traffic control. Within minutes, the plane entered Greek air space over the Aegean Sea and shortly afterward lost all radio contact. The Greek air force sent two F-16s fighter jets to intercept the plane
An autopsy on the body of the co-pilot, Pambos Haralambous, shows he was alive when the plane went down.
The two Greek F-16 fighterpilots had said seeing the co-pilot slumped over the controls in the cockpit, apparently unconscious, shortly before the plane crashed, the captain, a German pilot was not in the cockpit.

The crew and all 100 passengers of a Larnaca - Sofia flight of the Helios Airways refused to board the plane on Monday.
Hit By Technical Trouble

[SN30952]

Always good sources are your 'good friends'. That's why I checked in turkish press:
The Boeing 737 aircraft circled for about 90 minutes before making a turn towards Athens and, according to a senior Greek government source, crashing probably due to having run out of fuel.

Read more by yourself in turkishpress.com Cyprus airline admits crash plane had problems in past

And they not missed the occasion to get EU involved: The European Commission will follow the investigation closely.....

Aviation Daily carries the same info.

ZU522 took off from Larnaca at 8:30
LX-LGX noiticed: Flying time LCA-ATH is 1h45 min; plane left LCA at 09h00, so I don't think a breakfast was served.

I said on Sunday: Helios flight 522 crashed on a flight to Athens and then Prague on Sunday at 12:20(0920 GMT)



This made me think and you will notice, see the map I published higher, that I was wondering what took them so long. Raymond SilverJET picked this up, but we did not go into detail of the flying time then.
I noticed later: The plane lost contact with Greek and Cypriot air traffic control 23 minutes after take off. (bold)

So where have they been between around 09:00 and 12:20?

I further noted: On the other hand if the airco does not work well, the temperature is not controlled in the aircraft, explaining why it was flying low altitude (under the radar)?

If the B737 stayed at 30.000 feet all that time, no one would have survived till before impact. So I still conclude, the crew got the aircraft to lower level, the flight deck could not get full control of the situation, as the captain gets incapacitated to do his job. Meanwhile the aircraft is flying low enough to be in reach of mobile phone groundstations, so SMSing is possible as it appears now the oxigen masks worked in cabin, maybe not or probably not in cockpit. There are more than 2 masks there, what did go wrong?
Maybe the people in cabin could not get in the cockpit in time...
We know where it ended, but why?
How many members noticed this long flying time.... congrats LZ-inverstigators...

Imagine or remember how it feels when you sit in a froozen car in Winter, with froozen windows, temperature largely under zero and a lot of noise.

Note: You will maybe have wondered why some airline staff travel dressed in pull over? Sabena passengers (and also staff) will have noticed that many Sabena staff members travelled dressed like that, even to tropical destinations, now you know why. Some pilots also had always gloves 'stand-by'. Try to hold a freezing stick, you'll know.

[SN30952]

Tuesday Helios announced today its intention to provide initial compensation of euro 20,000 ($32,291) per passenger.

[Pluto777]

Frontpage Nieuwsblad 17/08 !
Finally pilotes dare to react !
I got many negative reactions on my contribution about economics versus safety and the pressure of directions to take off with (minor??) malfunctions !!
Finaly there is reaction.
Filip Van Rosem is the first who dares to react.
If you bundle the reactions, don't be afraid to get fired
Break the silence about these probelems

[Tommypilot]

I still cannot believe it was a problem with the airconditioning/press.

If it was a decompression (by a whole in the cabin) it would become more clear to me why the captain was not on his seat.(maybe in specting where the decompression came from?)

When you have problems with the airco you return and your oxigen masks should provide you enough oxigen to land the plane at the closest airport.

I don't understand what happened...will we ever know?


Regards,

[regi]

I don't think so Dutchbird. If there is a sudden decompression, the pilot will not first walk around in the airplane looking for a hole. He will bring the plane down to 9000 ft and land as soon as possible. Looking for holes can be done on the ground.
As far as I know, pilots don't carry rolls of 3M masking tape to close some gaps

[Tommypilot]

Thats what I think also, but I don't know for sure.

What did he do in the cabin then? I think he wanted to inspect something in the cabin...


Regards and my name is Tommy pls not Dutchbird,

[SN30952]

If it was a decompression (by a whole in the cabin) it would become more clear to me why the captain was not on his seat.(maybe in specting where the decompression came from?)

There's a hole in my bucket dear liza dear liza
There's a hole in my bucket dear liza a hole.

Then mend it dear henry dear henry
Then mend it dear henry mend it.

With what shall i mend it
That is not how problems are solved in aviation, Tommy.
This would have been an emergency, and for that crews are trained, with well defined procedures.
I cannot imagine a german captain would try his own 'do-it-yourself' procedure. For me the man got incapcitated, for what reason I do not know.

Secondly, if there were a visual inspection to be done, I guess it would not be the captain who would do so. He should stay in control at all times.

So the main objective of the crew would not have been, mending the aircraft but bringing the passengers and crew safely back to earth.
In this hierachy of priorities there is not much choice.