# Aviation News: Boeing 737 crashed by unclear causes



## Pisis (Aug 14, 2005)

A Boeing 737, marked ZU522 of Cypriot Helios Airlines with 121 people onboard on its way from Cyprus to Prague had crashed by unclear causes northern from Greek capital Athinai. There were 80 kids on board, totally 115 passengers and 6 crew members. Nobody survived.

Two Greek F-16 were send to observe the situation, one of the pilot was lying on the instrument panel, the other one wasn't in the cabin at all, reported the fighter pilots. The most probably reason is a malfunction of air-condition. According to an SMS message sent from one of the passangers, the people were freezeing to death. 


Original new from CNN.com:
_A Cypriot jet carrying 121 people hit a mountain north of Marathon, Greece, today according to government officials who say there are no survivors. Greek F-16s had been scrambled to intercept the plane when it failed to respond to air traffic controllers. The F-16 pilots said one pilot was slumped over the controls and they could see through the cabin windows that the oxygen masks had dropped._


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## FLYBOYJ (Aug 14, 2005)

Heard the news too - Tragic! Seem like a pressurization failure. A Lear Jet crashed here a few years ago after flying half way across the US. It killed a famous professional golfer. A "outflow valve" failed on that one.


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## Pisis (Aug 14, 2005)

In know, a golfer Stuart and it was somewhere in Dakota, right?


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## Nonskimmer (Aug 14, 2005)

Holy crap! That's too bad! What the hell could have happened to cause it I wonder?


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## FLYBOYJ (Aug 14, 2005)

Pisis said:


> In know, a golfer Stuart and it was somewhere in Dakota, right?



Yep - South Dakota - hell of a way to go!


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## trackend (Aug 15, 2005)

Last I heard was maintenance/repairs on the Pressurisation system had been carried out in the previous week.


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## plan_D (Aug 15, 2005)

It's really strange, the amount of air crashes of large airliners has increased over the past few months. There's been loads for the number that happened have happened in the past decade. There's been the Canada one, the Sicily one and this one in what? 3 weeks?


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## Pisis (Aug 15, 2005)

There was an interview with one of the Czech passengers who flew with these AL recently and he said that their planes are in terrible condition... That he went from Cyprus to Prague and they were supposed to fly with some type of aircraft but for a technical failure, totally another one came for them...


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## Pisis (Aug 15, 2005)

http://www.simhq.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=41&t=029747


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## Nonskimmer (Aug 15, 2005)

Thanks for the link. What a damn shame.  

BTW, nice bit of site swapping there. Posting a link here to there, and vice versa.


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## Pisis (Aug 15, 2005)

Yeah, thanks. SimHQ is my oldest home-forum, forum for the EAW.


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## FLYBOYJ (Aug 17, 2005)

Pisis said:


> There was an interview with one of the Czech passengers who flew with these AL recently and he said that their planes are in terrible condition... That he went from Cyprus to Prague and they were supposed to fly with some type of aircraft but for a technical failure, totally another one came for them...



I've seen some pretty scary stuff when I worked on airliners. We did a lot of DC-9 and 737 work. One of the best "foreign" operators I've dealt with as far as maintenance is concerned was Finnair. I worked on 2 of their older DC-9s, these aircraft were spotless. The worse I seen was COPA - Costa Rican airlines. They had floor boards so corroded you could cave them in by stomping on them.....

The worse US operator - US Airways. Their planes were crap, had loads of FOD left behind by mechanics......


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## Pisis (Aug 17, 2005)

Did you work with ČSA (Czech Aerolines)? 







I flew with them many times and I think they're pretty fine.


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## FLYBOYJ (Aug 17, 2005)

Never worked on them, but I will tell you one thing - I worked on a lot of east bloc aircraft imported into the US. The Russian stuff was crap, badly maintained, crappy repairs, it always took a lot of work to restore them. The Czech stuff was a lot better maintained. If Czech military maintainers took care of their stuff, I'm sure CSA does the same.


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## plan_D (Aug 17, 2005)

Civil aviators are much slacker than military ones in this country. My dad being an ex-RAF technician finds the people working on airliners at Doncaster terrible. But he always has found the civil aviators here appalling.


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## FLYBOYJ (Aug 17, 2005)

Here its the other way around to a point. The mechanics who come out of a trades school (like I did - tooting my own horn 8) ) are better. You get guys out of the military who achieve experience that makes them elligable to take their test for their A&P licences and they never learn all aspects of aircraft maintenance as they usually specialize in a certain field. USAF and Army guys are usually good; even though I was in the Navy, I have problems with some Navy guys. The worse are Marines - they are either really well trained or they are horrible. (I actually turned in a rigger to a special investigation team when I was at Lockheed - he kept rigging flight controls wrong, eventually he was fired - a former Marine aircraft maintainer!) In military programs there are much tighter controls than civilian operations as far as tool control and FOD.


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## plan_D (Aug 17, 2005)

Man, it's different here. You'd think it would be the civil aviators that are more strict with the loads of passengers...but no-no. The British military technicians are much better. THe only decent ones in the civil world are ex-military.


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## Pisis (Aug 18, 2005)

The CSA is very well maintained as far as I know. The Russian and Ukraine acft used to be really shitty, the pilots used to fly drunk, etc... Don't know how now, never flew with it. My parents told me it was terrible, they carried gooses and pigs inside the passangers' tube, etc...

And the czech Army is also very well mantained, the only problem here is the finances. But now the CAF bought the Gripens, so again it's becoming to the world elite. Also the Mi-24 HIND's are good AFAIK.


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## FLYBOYJ (Aug 19, 2005)

Here's one from a WW1 Museum located outside of NYC....

NTSB Identification: NYC05LA133
14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
Accident occurred Saturday, August 13, 2005 in Rhinebeck, NY
Aircraft: Palen Nieuport II, registration: N9163A
Injuries: 1 Serious.

This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed.

On August 13, 2005, about 1520 eastern daylight time, an amateur built Nieuport II, N9163A, was substantially damaged during a forced landing, after it experienced a loss of engine power during the initial climb after takeoff from Old Rhinebeck Airport (NY94), Rhinebeck, New York. The certificated commercial pilot was seriously injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan had been filed for the local personal fight, that was conducted under 14 CFR Part 91.

According to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector, the airplane was departing from the south runway, which was 2,200 feet long and 75 feet wide. As the airplane climbed, the engine began to lose power, and the pilot performed a forced landing to a field that was located about 150 feet beyond the departure end of the runway. During the landing, the airplane's wings were damaged, the nose assembly was buckled, and the landing gear was driven up into the fuselage.

The airplane was equipped with a Le Rhone 80-horsepower rotary engine. Fuel samples taken from the engine did not reveal any evidence of contamination. The airplane and engine will be inspected further at a later date.


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## cheddar cheese (Aug 22, 2005)

Shame.


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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 6, 2005)

Got this today from a friend....

Greetings,



Attached are photos of the Cypriot Helios 737-300. Looking at the photos, it appears that the aiplane is flying with 2 units of flaps. I wonder what that's all about. 



-----------------------------------------



Cockpit Confusion Found in Crash of Cypriot Plane

By DON PHILLIPS, International Herald Tribune

Published: September 7, 2005



PARIS, Sept. 6 - The crew members of a Cypriot 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 lost consciousness, according to several people connected with the investigation into the crash.



Complicating the cockpit confusion, neither the German pilot nor the young, inexperienced Cypriot co-pilot could speak the same language fluently, and each had difficulty understanding the other's English, the worldwide language of air traffic control. So much for English being the language of aviation.



A total of 121 people were killed in the crash after the plane climbed and flew on autopilot, circling near Athens until one engine stopped running because of a lack of fuel. The sudden imbalance of power, with only one engine operating, caused the autopilot to disengage and the plane to begin to fall. This is a euphemism for a
lawndart into the mountains of Greece. So far, the Greek authorities have hinted at oxygen problems but have not announced the full findings of investigaton. The people interviewed for this article agreed to speak only on the condition that they not be identified because none are official spokesmen for the investigation and because of political sensitivities arising from a Cypriot plane's crashing in Greece.



Investigators pieced together the story of the crash from many sources. In the wreckage, they found the first solid clues: the pressurization valve and an air outflow valve set incorrectly. Air traffic control tapes provided information on the confusion in the cockpit. The plane had a sophisticated new flight data recorder that
provided a wealth of information. There were maintenance records from the night before, and investigators interviewed the mechanics who worked on the plane.



Among other things, the investigators determined that the pilot was not in his seat because he was up trying to solve a problem that turned out to be one of the lesser threats facing the plane. The plane that crashed, a Boeing 737-300, underwent maintenance the night before. The maintenance crew apparently left a
pressurization controller rotary knob out of place, according to the officials connected to the investigation, and the crew did not catch the mistake during preflight checks the next day. This meant that the plane could not pressurize properly. Pushing the button in and selecting AUTO will solve this problem, usually verified to be there on the Before Starting Engines checklist.



At 10,000 feet, an alarm went off to warn the crew that the plane would not pressurize. Crew members mistakenly thought that the alarm horn was a warning to tell them that their controls were not set properly for takeoff, the officials said. This siren and RED warning lights are rather hard to ignore, leveling off the plane until the problem is dealt with is considered the first response.



The same horn is used for both conditions, although it will sound for takeoff configuration only while the plane is still on the ground. The BIG RED lights usually will differentiate the problem. The climb continued on autopilot. At 14,000 feet, oxygen masks deployed as designed, and a master caution light illuminated in the
cockpit. Another alarm sounded at about the same time on an unrelated matter, warning that there was insufficient cooling air in the compartment housing avionics equipment. This is caused by insufficient airflow and, oh yes, the immediate action item is to don Oxygen Masks and check 100% oxygen is flowing, declare and emergency and descend.



The radio tapes showed that this created tremendous confusion in the cockpit. Normally an aircraft cabin is held at 8,000 feet pressure, so the crew at over 14,000 feet would already be experiencing some disorientation because of a lack of oxygen. During this time, the captain and co-pilot discovered that they had no common language and that their English was not good enough for the complicated technical conversation required to fix the problem. Unbelievable!



The crew members called the maintenance base in Cyprus and were told that the circuit breaker to turn off the loud new alarm was in a cabinet behind the captain. The captain got up from his seat to look for the circuit breaker, apparently ignoring the confused co-pilot. As the plane continued to climb on autopilot, the air grew so thin that the crew became seriously impaired. The captain lost consciousness first on the floor of the cockpit, followed by the co-pilot, who remained in his seat, according to the officials. The autopilot did as it was programmed to do, flying the plane at 34,000 feet to Athens and entering a holding pattern. It remained 
in a long circling pattern, shadowed by Greek military jets, until fuel ran low and one engine quit.



Boeing, the maker of the plane, issued a notice shortly after the crash to airlines that it would revise flight crew training manuals to emphasize to crews that they must understand how the various warning systems work and what to do about them. This was caused by very bad training and a fundamental lack of how systems work on a commercial airliner. The notice emphasizes that the takeoff configuration warning horn will not sound under any circumstances after the plane has left the
ground. The same horn will then be used only for a cabin altitude warning. The company notice said there had been other instances of confusion over the horn by pilots. "Confusion between the cabin altitude warning horn and the takeoff configuration warning horn can be resolved if the crew remembers that the takeoff configuration warning horn is only armed when the airplane is on the ground, " the notice said. "If this horn is activated in flight, it indicates that the cabin altitude has reached 10,000 feet."


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## evangilder (Oct 6, 2005)

Interesting.


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## Gnomey (Oct 6, 2005)

evangilder said:


> Interesting.


I agree Eric, very interesting.


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## syscom3 (Oct 6, 2005)

It looks like it was a mistake piled on another mistake, piled onto another mistake..........


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## FLYBOYJ (Oct 6, 2005)

That's usually the way it happens.


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## Pisis (Oct 6, 2005)

yep.
good pictures though.......


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## Nonskimmer (Oct 6, 2005)

It's still a damn shame. But nice pics.


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