Cypriot plane crash

[AndrewJ]

I heard a A380 had come down under similar circumstances?

[Dave Stones]

Originally Posted by Saxodriver

I heard a A380 had come down under similar circumstances?

A380 as in the double-decker one?

[AndrewJ]

So I heard was in a newspaper, i may be confused with another airbus tha a350 or something but a airbus came down? unless that was confused with the 737?

[SMHarman]

A 727 in the US had this happen a while back, but the Pilots got it down to 10kft soon enough and all survived (hospital treatment for some I think).

Payne Stewart (a golfers) lear jet also had this happen 3 years ago he 2 pax and 2 pilots died, the plane continued flying for about 5 hours on autopilot until it ran out of fuel.

[AndrewJ]

it is a wonder that these highly advanced planes, do not have a safety redundant system to automatically drop height to a suitable level to maintain a form of life support?

Or would it cost too much?

[danielf]

One thing I'm wondering is the following: It is suggested is that the (potential) loss of cabin pressure may not have left the pilots with sufficient time to put on their oxygen masks.

If this is the case, is it possible the accident could have been prevented if the pilots had been wearing oxygen masks before the incident? (like the fighter pilots I see in movies. The reference to movies is indicative of my ignorance concerning the subject btw)

[Xaccers]

Fighter pilots don't always have their masks on, just as airline pilots.
The plane would need oxygen tanks big enough to last the entire flight, which adds weight and extra expense.

[danielf]

Originally Posted by Xaccers

Fighter pilots don't always have their masks on, just as airline pilots.
The plane would need oxygen tanks big enough to last the entire flight, which adds weight and extra expense.

But the plane is already carrying oxygen tanks. When cabin pressure falls the masks drop out of the ceiling for all passengers. If one of the pilots was wearing a mask, and the oxygen supply to his mask would be turned on automatically when cabin pressure drops (and passengers are presented the masks), he might not loose consciousness?

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by danielf

But the plane is already carrying oxygen tanks. When cabin pressure falls the masks drop out of the ceiling for all passengers. If one of the pilots was wearing a mask, and the oxygen supply to his mask would be turned on automatically when cabin pressure drops (and passengers are presented the masks), he might not loose consciousness?

But the tanks don't carry oxygen to last the entire flight.
Also, would you like to wear a rubber mask for an entire 14 hour flight?
Think of the sweat sores! yuck
They can't have the cockpit flooded with oxygen in the event of a pressure drop while the crew put on their masks just in case there was a fire.

[marky]

Originally Posted by Xaccers

They can't have the cockpit flooded with oxygen in the event of a pressure drop while the crew put on their masks just in case there was a fire.

good point the plane would explode if flooded with oxygen

[Flubflow]

Fighter pilots are supposed to always have their masks on. That's the rules. Their cabin is pressurized much less, probably equivalent to around 18,000ft (to lessen explosive decompression). Sure, some pilots may likely remove them momentarily below 10,000ft to scratch an itch when cruising but since your microphone is in the mask then you need to be wearing anyway in order to communicate properly with ATC and/or your wingman.

Emergency oxygen on an airliner from the drop-down masks would probably last about 15 minutes tops but could be as little as 5 minutes(perhaps more for the pilots I would think). In theory that should be enough to get down to around 10,000ft or less from a usual top end of around 36,000ft.

Starvation of oxygen (hypoxia) is initially like being drunk. I've seen RAF pilots and flight crew do training in a pressure tank so that they can understand the onset and effects of hypoxia.

If there was a problem with the system on the airliner whereby the oxygen masks deployed late or not at all then perhaps it would be difficult to realise in your hypoxic state that you need to manually deploy the mask before you passed out. This is what is so puzzling. The emgergency oxygen system is independent of the pressurisation system so it should deploy as soon as low pressure is sensed.
Did the pilots emergency oxygen deploy OK but the actual supply broken? That would explain a lot.

[marky]

I shall wait and see speculation is no good at all

[Xaccers]

Could the depresurisation happen so quickly that they didn't have time to put on their masks, or were they trying first to get the plane down/under control without thinking about their masks?
Also I heard that one of the F16 pilots said that a couple of passengers were in the cockpit trying to safe the flight.
I gues though until the flight recorders are made public, we'll not really know.

[BBKing]

They've got about 20 seconds at that height before the lack of oxygen confuses the brain to a fatal degree (i.e. no one can fly the plane). Flubflow is right about hypoxia being like inebriation - it also affects different people in different ways. They should be able to get onto oxygen in around four seconds though - it's a practiced drill. Coming down to a safe height takes 3 or 4 minutes.

Cockpit crew oxygen is a different system to the cabin, but as far as I've read both crew are on the same system, so if that fails or is contaminated it could be extremely serious. Meanwhile the passengers and cabin crew are fine, but freezing at -52 +- 15 Celsius.

I heard a A380 had come down under similar circumstances?

Since there's only one A380 flying, and every time it's gone up it's come down safely, I suggest you revisit your source! I'm not aware of any crew incapacitation related crashes of major airliners recently (looking up on aviation-safety.net, no one else is either).

As for automatically crash diving, this is fine over the UK (apart from the risk of midairs) but highly unsafe over mountains - you could find the computer crash diving you into Mont Blanc. Any warnings sometimes go off accidentally and clear themselves.

Incidentally, planes don't usually carry oxygen cylinders but oxygen generators, which mix chemicals together to produce oxygen (and a lot of heat, actually). The ValuJet crash in 1996 was caused by illegally shipped oxygen generators in the hold catching fire during flight.

Pilots are trained to deal with rapid depressurisation and have oxygen masks on hand so they can prevent hypoxia and thus make a rapid but orderly descent to about 10,000 ft. Speculatio now seems to be centering on whether the pilots oxygen supply was restricted (possibly with the suppl,y run down) or indeed switched off.