Helios Crash Update!

[Fly2e]

Crew confusion found in Athens plane crash.

Paris -- The crew members of a Cypriot Helios Airways airliner that crashed Aug. 14 near Athens became confused by a series of alarms as the plane climbed, failing to recognize that the cabin was not pressurizing until they grew mentally disoriented because of lack of oxygen and passed out, according to several people connected with the investigation.

[ozzy72]

[beefhole]

I knew it was too weird to have not involved any pilot error-such tragic circumstances, had they even spoken the same language fluently this may have been averted.

[Hagar]

The people interviewed for this article agreed to do so on condition that they not be identified because none are official spokesmen for the investigation and because of political sensitivities arising from a Cypriot plane crashing in Greece.

What I would like to know is why these people feel entitled to break confidentiality by leaking this information to a newspaper or other news service before the official report has been published. This is becoming very common now & personally I think it's out of order. If the information is from an anonymous source how do we know that's it's accurate or reliable?

[Fly2e]

I don't know the validity of the report, but here is the link....

http://www.airdisaster.com/news/0905/08/news.shtml

Dave

[Hagar]

No offence but no matter where it's published anonymous statements aren't worth the paper they're printed on in my book.

[ATI_7500]

The whole crash is a mystery to me. The captain formerly flew for the Interflug, and that airline had the best trained pilots of maybe the whole world.

[Omag 2.0]

I still don't understand how these mighty machines, given this report is correct, depend on such weak systems as a knob that takes out the whole pressurisation-system. I remember another case, in wich maintenance had taped of the pilot-tube openings with tape, to protect the instruments from cleaning. They forgot to remove the tape. During the flight the instruments gave false readings wich produced a stall warning, though the airspeed seemed to be ok and false alltitude reading even though the autopilot was set for a climb. These contradictory facts puzzled the crew, they couldn't solve the problems and the plane crashed...

all because of a piece of plastic tape... missed by maintenance and during the pre-flight check-ups.

And why o why would they use the same warning-tone for 2 different failures? At least change the interval or something, or the tone, that can't be to hard now can it...  :-/

[Fly2e]

I remember that Kris!
Altitude and speed could not be determined and basically the plane stalled all because the paint had been repainted and maintenance forgot to remove the tape that was on the tips of the devices for recording these readings.

Sad to say that a few pieces of small duct tape took down a huge airliner......  :(

[Hagar]

all because of a piece of plastic tape... missed by maintenance and during the pre-flight check-ups.

An unfortunate combination of errors, like most 'accidents'. It should never have got this far if correct inspection procedures had been followed but we all make mistakes especially when in a hurry. Most jobs on anything to do with aircraft are wanted yesterday, if not sooner, which is the reason for my motto in my sig which I used throughout my career. This goes to show just how important those pre-flight walkarounds are. I suspect that if the captain had done that properly instead of the usual cursory walk round or making someone else do it for him it would never have happened.

[Omag 2.0]

Offcourse every-one knows I meant pitot-tubes when i wrote pilot-tubes...  ::)

[beefhole]

I remember literally gasping out loud when I read that story a while back Kris.  Covering the pitot tubes on a 747-absolutely disastrous results.

[Sytse]

Somebody please explane to me how 2 experienced pilots can just ignore an alarm?  ???
Something still needs to be cleared up...

[Hagar]

[quote]
Somebody please explane to me how 2 experienced pilots can just ignore an alarm?

[beefhole]

Somebody please explane to me how 2 experienced pilots can just ignore an alarm?  ???
Something still needs to be cleared up...

They didn't ignore it, they misunderstood it.  Read the article a little more carefully