Aviation News: Boeing 737 crashed by unclear causes

[Pisis]

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.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

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.

 

[Pisis]

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

 

[Nonskimmer]

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

 

[FLYBOYJ]

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

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

 

[trackend]

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

 

[plan_D]

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?

 

[Pisis]

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...

 

[Pisis]

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

 

[Nonskimmer]

Thanks for the link. What a damn shame.

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

 

[Pisis]

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

 

[FLYBOYJ]

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......

 

[Pisis]

Did you work with ČSA (Czech Aerolines)?

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

 

[FLYBOYJ]

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.

 

[plan_D]

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.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

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.

 

[plan_D]

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.

 

[Pisis]

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.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

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.

 

[cheddar cheese]

Shame.