Cypriot airlines crashes near Athens

Source - Reuters website

Not exactly the most riveting story on the news, but one which, perhaps unitentionally, confirms the Greek paranoia since the attacks on the World Trade Centre. I'm sure we remember the case of the British plane spotters arrested for taking photos, and this story reveals the Greeks deploying F-16 fighters as a precaution oafter losing comms with the inbound jet.

Ghost

 

All the stranger though as the scrambled F-16s reported that the pilot wasn't visible in the cockpit and the co-pilot appeared to be slumped in his seat. What's going on?

Reported on CNN and BBC World

 

Surely a natural precaution??

 

I think you'll find that the Greeks have always been very sensitive when it comes to their military establishments having been in a 'cold war' like situation along the Greek-Turkish border for the last thirty or so years. So seeing as the arrest of plane spotters has nothing to do with 911 and most countries will scramble aircraft to see what any aircraft aproaching their airspace, that is not in communication with ATC, is doing, I fail to see the point you are trying to make.

I also fail to see how the loss of an airliner with 120(ish) people on board could not be riveting news?

 

PP - abso-bloody-lutely!

Sky news are now reporting from PPRuNe! So that's OK then.

Woo
EGKK 08R

 

Seem's that decompression is suspected.The media reports the aircraft has had the problem before. We lost a great golfer Payne Stewart when his private jet decompressed and eventually ran out of fuel and crashed.

 

BBC News online published a similar story to what Anya's source stated.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4150312.stm

I assume one can now only wait for the examination of the Black Box, which has apparently been recovered.

 

PP,

I concede the point ref the Greeks' sensitivity to military establishments, but to clarify my final point. I was not saying that the news was unimportant, but was referring to the fact that it was placed significantly lower on the headline page than the "Paula Radcliffe" and "Gaza/Irsaeli" stories (although that has since changed.

I certainly consider it to be an important news story, but was indulging in a little sarcasm in respect of the Reuters web site....

Apologies if that lack of clarity offended anyone, that was not the intention.

Ghost

 

One of the girls at work was going to get that flight to prague, but decided not to 2 weeks ago. Talk about luck!!

 

Guys, some exchanges deleted or edited

Once again, the media are speculating as to the cause of the crash , and no doubt drawing heavily from PPrune and certain FI journalists.

The fact is , no one knows what caused this , until the Greek AAIB findings or the black box recordings are made known.

In the interim, please try and restrict the speculation as to responsibility, for two reasons.

1. I'm sure the maintenance staff and others are going through horrors right now

2. I am afraid , though this is NOT confirmed, there may have been British casualties on this flight.

Thanks

PTP

 

A friend of mine is a helios pilot, he got called on standby. He was feeding us information about what was happening. Apparently when the A/C tried contacting the pilots via radio, no answer. So The pilots and passengers were passed out before the F16's got there. Its been on the Cypriot news for most of the day.

 

Anya, there could be a number of reasons why there were no comms. I know you are only reporting what has been said to you, but it is still speculation till we know more.

 

Anya , sorry , had to edit this post. The servicing on these Jets is done in the UK amongst other places I believe , and right now, I don't think we should speculate. We still don't know the reason why both Pilot's should have been incapactitated.

www.pprune.org has a whole thread on this, including lots of people who fly these aircraft for a living.

 

Hey PTP this is not prune – if you want to MOD like them sign back in and moderate on prune. WTF difference is any speculation on here got to do with anything? You think the BBC are going to take shit off here and use it in regards to an air crash report? Stop being a such a pretentious twat and thinking you are some kind of moral compass for this board. Arrrrrgggghhh!!!!!

You get it right a lot of the time but some times you really are so far up your own arrse it's not true!

 

PTP, before a flight it is normal for a service check. I am just saying what was passed on. Please if your going to delete my post and re-write over it let me know. Over here we were informed more to what the UK was regarding this flight. Why you think we knew the crew and passengers were all passed out by the time it crashed.