Report: Human error caused Helios crash (lack of oxygen to cabin)

[muriel_volestrangler]

The Cypriot Helios Airways Boeing 737-300 crashed near Athens in August 2005, killing all 121 people on board. The flight from Larnaca to Prague flew on autopilot for nearly two hours before running out of fuel and slamming into a hillside.

The report said the pilots misread instruments regulating cabin pressure and misinterpreted a warning signal.

Maintenance officials on the ground were also blamed for leaving pressure controls on an incorrect setting. In addition, the plane's manufacturers Boeing took "ineffective" measures in response to previous pressurisation incidents in the particular type of aircraft, the report said.

The plane was starved of oxygen as it gained altitude, which rendered the pilots and passengers unconscious.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6036507.stm

Scrambled air force jets saw the pilots unconscious, and a flight attendant struggling to fly the plane. What an awful way to go. But I'm surprised both pilots fell unconscious before they realised what was happening.

[keopeli]

1. How would a flight attendant be conscious?

The plane was starved of oxygen as it gained altitude, which rendered the pilots and passengers unconscious.

It sounds to me like they were probably all dead. Two hours in an oxygen deprived state sounds pretty bad.

[Cronus Protagonist]

2. IF someone was conscious, thety could have flown it lower

And the pilots would wake up, assuming they were not dead, and take control of the plane. How the place could crash with only this problem is a wonder to me. Perhaps I just don't understand it?

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. If they understood the controls

either how to fly it, or if they could use the radio to get instructions, as in all the disaster movies. If both pilots were already unconscious, the flight attendant may have been close to it - which can mean grogginess and unclear thinking. The article doesn't make it clear how far into the flight the attendant was seen trying to fly the plane.

[Ice4Clark]

3. I was thinking of this tragedy a few days ago, wondering if

they ever determined the cause.

[Eurobabe]

4. Sometimes I think the overseas flights try to do this on purpose

to render passengers brain dead before they get to European soil, or vice versa. When you get off the plane you are in such a stupor, you won't be a threat.

[NashVegas]

5. Less Oxygen - Less Unruly Passengers

The downside of the smoking ban on flights is the airlines were no longer required to pump in as much fresh air.