August 14, 200520 yr This is the official news story from the BBC news website: A Cypriot passenger plane carrying at least 121 people has crashed near Athens moments after losing radio contact with air traffic control. Greek F-16 fighter jets scrambled to locate the plane reported seeing one pilot slumped in his seat, but could not see the plane's second pilot. The Helios Airways plane, travelling from Larnaca, Cyprus, crashed in hills just north of the Greek capital. A rescue helicopter dispatched to the site has not reported any survivors. The head of air traffic control at Athens airport, Iannis Pantazaratos, told AFP they had no idea who was flying the plane. "The airport lost all contact with the plane which should have landed in the late morning, and two air force planes sent up in reconnaissance found it flying above the Euboea peninsula, but they saw the pilots doubled up in the cabin," he said. Rescue effort Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis cut short a holiday on the island of Tinos to return to Athens. One eyewitness, Dimitris Karezas, told the Reuters news agency he saw the plane being followed by fighter jets. "Two, three minutes later I heard a big bang and ever since I've started looking for it, but I have not found anything yet," he said. Helios Airways was founded in 1999 as Cyprus' first independent airline. It operates a fleet of Boeing 737 jets between Cyprus and London, Athens, Sofia, Dublin and Strasbourg in France. "Da mihi castitatem et continentam, sed noli modo"
August 14, 200520 yr Watching it on TV now :( Looks like they all suffocated when the cabin depressurised :( Mercifull <3 Suzi "We don't want players to be able to buy their way to success in RuneScape. If we let players start doing this, it devalues RuneScape for others. We feel your status in real-life shouldn't affect your ability to be successful in RuneScape" Jagex 01/04/01 - 02/03/12
August 14, 200520 yr Author Yeah sounds like a failure in the oxygen system, it's unlikely anyone survived. :( "Da mihi castitatem et continentam, sed noli modo"
August 14, 200520 yr what do you think happened to the pilot? its sad to hear that many people died :cry:
August 14, 200520 yr Wow...I dunno what to say. They apparently all had probably already froze to death before the crash anyways? They say the pilot was not in the cockpit, and the co pilot was perhaps knocked out, slumped over the controls. No sign of life in the cockpit when the plane was in the air, it was on auto control. An air condiditoning problem caused it, as the plane was freezing cold. Man...thats really sad. Unfortunately the passengers weren't as lucky as the ones on Air France a week back :( AD
August 14, 200520 yr I heard on the Finnish news that the greek army might suspect a take-over in the plane :roll:
August 14, 200520 yr On the radio it said someone from the plane sent a text message to a friend saying that they were cold and they had visited the pilots and one was blue and the other was unconscious. So yeah looks like the plane depressurised.
August 14, 200520 yr I heard on the Finnish news that the greek army might suspect a take-over in the plane :roll: Nah I think they ruled that out. F-16's were escorting the plane I believe, and saw no reason to shoot it down, no signs of any takeover or struggles :?
August 14, 200520 yr I heard on the Finnish news that the greek army might suspect a take-over in the plane :roll: Nah I think they ruled that out. F-16's were escorting the plane I believe, and saw no reason to shoot it down, no signs of any takeover or struggles :? I don't know what to believe, but that's just what I read. Anyways, why would they shoot the plane down even if it was kidnapped and hundreds of passengers in the plane?
August 14, 200520 yr I don't know what to believe, but that's just what I read. Anyways, why would they shoot the plane down even if it was kidnapped and hundreds of passengers in the plane? To stop the hijackers flying it into a place where more people would die. Mercifull <3 Suzi "We don't want players to be able to buy their way to success in RuneScape. If we let players start doing this, it devalues RuneScape for others. We feel your status in real-life shouldn't affect your ability to be successful in RuneScape" Jagex 01/04/01 - 02/03/12
August 14, 200520 yr I want to know why there has been so many plane crashes in the past month or so.. :? Maybe air travel isnt as safe as we all thought
August 14, 200520 yr I want to know why there has been so many plane crashes in the past month or so.. :? Maybe air travel isnt as safe as we all thought I don't think there has been any more than usual. Just more high profile (like in the centre of that Canadian city or just outside of the Greek capital or with some African vice president on board.) Flying is still by far the safest way to travel considering how many people use it.
August 14, 200520 yr I want to know why there has been so many plane crashes in the past month or so.. :? Maybe air travel isnt as safe as we all thought Maybe it's just media showing more of this now, as these things sell? That's the way media's worked the past decades I'd say. But ofcourse it's just as sad as any other accident, I just don't see how they can give so much coverage to plane crashes when there's many more people dying of other causes every day...
August 14, 200520 yr Author I want to know why there has been so many plane crashes in the past month or so.. :? Maybe air travel isnt as safe as we all thought Statistically if you flew every single day of the year it would take 3000 years before you had an accident in a plane. It's just when planes go down they're normally carrying hundreds of people. "Da mihi castitatem et continentam, sed noli modo"
August 14, 200520 yr Actually theres been 78 airplane accidents and safety incidents this year with total fatalities of 534 (6.8 fatalities per accident on average) In 2004, there was a provisional total of 13,738 accidents in which someone was killed or injured in Scotland alone. I don't know any other specific stats because I havnt looked, but it still equates to air travel being safer. We just don't hear on the TV anymore about every fatal accident. Source: http://www.scotland.gov.uk Mercifull <3 Suzi "We don't want players to be able to buy their way to success in RuneScape. If we let players start doing this, it devalues RuneScape for others. We feel your status in real-life shouldn't affect your ability to be successful in RuneScape" Jagex 01/04/01 - 02/03/12
August 14, 200520 yr Freezing to death/your [wagon] off before you come crashing down... what a way to go.
August 15, 200520 yr Freezing to death/your wagon off before you come crashing down... what a way to go. owned :?
August 15, 200520 yr If they were in truble, y didnt they radio for help? Lost Someone? Someone else might know them. Ask here. The Missing Person List!
August 15, 200520 yr If they were in truble, y didnt they radio for help? Because when the cabin depressurises you've got about 20-30 seconds to drop the plane 15-20 thousand feet to a breathable altitude before you freeze to death immediatly. I'm sure the polits had more important tings to do than try to call into air traffic. What would a radio for help do anyway? Its not like they can remotely control the aircraft. Mercifull <3 Suzi "We don't want players to be able to buy their way to success in RuneScape. If we let players start doing this, it devalues RuneScape for others. We feel your status in real-life shouldn't affect your ability to be successful in RuneScape" Jagex 01/04/01 - 02/03/12
August 19, 200520 yr the only funny thing about this was that the f-16 pilots could see in the plane, and when it decompresurizes, the windows frost up. the pilots could see teh air masks down, which means the plane did decompressurize, and although the pilot wasnt in the cockpit, one of the f-16 pilots said he saw some ppl in the cockpit trying to right the plane, but it was on auto-pilot, as mentioned earlier. their last transmission was that there was some problem with the a/c, and then no more. and because of the extenet of the crash, the black box was really damaged, so they may never know what happened. so strange :?
Create an account or sign in to comment