F-16s scrambled to investigate Cyprus airliner??

[LincolnMcGrath]

Two Greek air force F-16s inspected the aircraft from the air after air traffic control lost communication with it while it was en route from Larnaca, Cyprus to Athens.


Who knew you could do something like that? :eyes: Does anyone know how long the intercept took. Was it as quick as the Payne Stewart flight? Did the time frame resemble the scramble to meet the French airliner flying into the west coast a few years ago?

Here

A Greek Government spokesman says the fighter pilots, intercepting at 34,000ft, saw only the first officer in the cockpit and he was apparently unconscious.

A passenger on the aircraft, identified as Nikos Petridis, is widely reported to have sent one or two text messages from his mobile phone to his cousin, containing the words: “The pilot has turned blue. Cousin farewell. We’re freezing.”

Greek rescue services say that passengers’ bodies recovered from the wreckage, in hills some 20nm north of Athens, were wearing oxygen masks.

There are unconfirmed reports that the crew reported a problem with the on-board air circulation systems at an earlier stage in the flight.

[Corgigal]

1. I see someone else has spotted that too

I SOOOO tried not to think about that part of the airline crash. However it is Standard Operating Procedure and it was also on 9/11.

Signed a Former Air Traffic Controller

Going to punch a wall now.

[LincolnMcGrath]

3. There is also this fact.

Low-cost Helios Airways was established as Cyprus's first private airline in 1999, with a fleet of four planes, and sold last year to Cyprus-based tour operator Libra Holidays. (cheaperisbetter)


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,16275106,00.html">Here

But Italian aviation specialists suggested yesterday that the pilots might have been poisoned.

The technical director of Italy's pilots union, aeronautical accident specialist and Alitalia captain Pierluigi Rossi, said it was inexplicable that the pilots had failed to fly the plane lower once they realised there were problems with cabin decompression.

The pilots should have had enough time to put on their oxygen masks and drop the plane to a safer altitude.

"The two pilots could have been poisoned," he told Corriere della Sera. "Perhaps by food, although that is difficult because for security reasons the pilots never eat the same meal. It's more likely to be a gas that contaminated the air, sucked in from outside - or toxic material could have been in the baggage."

The president of Italy's commercial pilots association told La Repubblica fumes from the engine or an oil leak might have contaminated the cockpit.

[moodforaday]

8. A question, if I may

Many sources - but not MSM - have been saying that air traffic controllers have been banned from talking about the events of 9-11 under threat of termination and possible imprisonment. Is there any way to verify this? Have you perhaps talked to your colleagues about that? If they can't talk about 9-11, can they at least confirm that they're gagged?

[LincolnMcGrath]

9. I do know the tapes of that day were 'accidentally' thrown away.

Of course this news was treated with a big snore by the 9-11 commission and the MSM.

[Corgigal]

10. I was lucky

I wasn't a working FAA controller at the time of 9/11. I do have a best friend that works tower at Daytona but she wasn't there that day. I just remember what the Newark controllers said, what little they could say, how they watched the whole thing.

edit:spelling thingy

[benburch]

2. If he knew his air circulation systems were a problem...

why didn't he descend to 8000' where pressurization was not needed and the air is much warmer?

We'll probably never know, but that is really elementary.

[rman]

4. that's a thought-crime dude,

your attention span is not supposed to be that long.

[spuddonna]

5. Do any of the news agencies have passenger lists?

I've put my tin foil hat on, but it seems strange that if there were problems with the pressurization of the cabin, that they'd continue to fly so high... So my next question becomes, who was on that flight?

[LincolnMcGrath]

6. I have heard one American family.

I believe they have confirmed 21 children. :cry:

[spuddonna]

7. ah geez...

:( I feel like we are steeped in death...

sigh