121 people on board... plane slammed into terrain at full speed. Preliminary indication looks like crew incapacitated by decompression or an act of terrorism. F-16 pilots reported no one in the left seat and the FO slumped over in the right... Not a good month for commercial aviation folks. :(

Greek media now reporting that it was some sort of decompression/air conditioning problem - passengers sent text messages indicating as such... 80 passengers were children apparently - what a horrible accident.

Very sad :( ..... what a sad end for the passengers :(Reports say that the plane is a 737-800, so this is the first NG crash :(

I do not understand how the passenger who sent the text message to his cousin on the ground noted that the pilots were unconscious. Were the pax on oxygen? There is emergency Oxygen in the cockpit of the 737 for crew for situations where the oxygen system fails to deploy normally. This is a strange and terrible situation with an irreversible end. It looks suspicious to me and my wife.God Bless all aboard.JS

Indeed, the crash seems to have been caused by a problem with the air conditioning unit which lead to cabin decompression. It's still quite mysterious as to why the pilots did not wear their masks.May their souls rest in peace.This is also the first ever crash of a Cypriot airliner with fatalities.

The plane of Helios Airlines,that crashed at the area , was a Boeing 737-300.That,is also registered in flight plans of Athens International Airport.

"passengers sent text messages indicating as such"This is EXACTLY a situation that a lot of us imagine what we would ever do if we found ourselves in and how we'd react. Im not going to bother sending any messages except that I'm heading for the cockpit to try and save the day. It's really a shame that something like this happened.Carmine http://forums.avsim.net/images/wave.gif

How are they be so sure that the Air Conditioning unit caused the problem and if so why couldn't the pilots use their emergency oxygen system. Something very strange about the immediate claim that it was an accident, told by a passenger ?????? .

>How are they be so sure that the Air Conditioning unit caused>the problem and if so why couldn't the pilots use their>emergency oxygen system. Something very strange about the>immediate claim that it was an accident, told by a passenger >?????? .They are not. Speculations...

While there are a lot of questions that need to be answered, and they will in time, for me I think that I will just express my sympathies to all of those involved in this tragic occurence. My thoughts and prayers go out to all of those that have been touched by this and I hope that whatever supreme being that they believe in will bring them peace.Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

It is so sad to hear.Condolences to all their families and relatives...:(

Yep, definently a sad day.:( 48 children were aboard, 1/3 of the passengers killed. Sources tell me that the F-16 saw some people in the cockpit (either crew or pax) trying to figure out how to fly the thing. (They didnt know how to disengage autopilot) (dont scream at me for this, I got it from the Comcast News Center) Anyway, the masks have ONLY a 15-minute oxygen span (from airliners.net) and the crew should have descended immediately. (Unless they were dead already)Thats my $0.02

JS: I agree the message from the PAX while the aircraft was in a decompression and subsequent terrain collision is a very strange event. PIC/CIC asleep, PAX awake? How did the PAX know these things? Did he/she walk up to the cockpit, open the secure door, and view the state of the flight crew?Why was the aircraft in a ruptured state (decompression)? Cockpit blown open?Terrain collision pretty much removes the physical evidence.I second the God Bless all aboard.bt

must've been a problem with the a/c...some passenger wrote a message saying "farewell cousin, we're freezing"...terrible... reports now say that all 115 passengers + 6 crew members died in the accident. let's hope they weren't conscious.a truly sad august we have...

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