Helios Airways Flight 522 - DISASTER BREAKDOWN

it seems like something out of a horror film you have an aeroplane of which everyone on board is unconscious including the pilots but yet the plane continues to fly to its destination on its own such case was in fact reality on an August summer's day in 2005 somehow the simple one-hour fly across the Aegean Sea went so terribly wrong [Music] it's the summer season in Europe which means a very busy time for passenger air travel in the early and mid 2000s dozens of small low-cost and charter airlines erupted onto the scene in this part of Europe to cash in on the exploding holiday market many of these airlines typically leased their planes from other airlines or leasing companies and only operate a small handful of planes with a small amount of planes the airlines would typically run them around the clock 24/7 to make more money Cypriot airline Helios Airways was no exception a small fleet of three aircraft operated charter flights all across Europe serving both the northern European holiday market and the local Cypriot economy by bringing in tourists at a lower cost in their current seven years of service they have had not one major incident it's the early hours of August 14th 2005 this helios airways boeing 737 is just about to land at Larnaca Airport the crib just flown the plane from Stansted Airport in London once on the ground the pilots notify maintenance of a frozen door and also reports of abnormal noises coming from the aft left door of the plane while the crew clock off for the night the maintenance crew get to work fixing the frozen doll it's nothing too major that a few routine checks can't fix and the plane should be good to go by the morning as part of the maintenance checks the engineer performed a pressurization leak test following the procedure step by step the engineer to correctly perform the test has to change the setting on the cabin pressure panel to manual in the end the door was fixed however the engineer after carrying out their tests did not switch the knob back to automatic this tiny seemingly insignificant step seems small but is crucial in the events that follow the next day we must now discuss the pressurization and air conditioning systems on the Boeing 737 as in a plane climbs the air pressure around it changes as humans we cannot breathe the outside air at cruising altitude so it must be pressurized we hear the stem thrown around a lot especially by the media but what does it actually mean I will try to keep it as simple as possible as passengers will need good quality fresh air to breathe comfortably in a sealed metal tube this air is limited so it needs to be sourced from outside Arras in taken by the entrance in flight constantly some of the air is taken to the air conditionin pax where it is compressed and heated before we in distributed around the cabin without the air-conditioning pax working the people on board the plane will not be able to breathe without assistance from bottled oxygen however it is quite common for the crew to turn off the packs for takeoff ticket extra power for the engines but generally throughout the flight they will be switched on in the cockpit the crew have a system which allows them to select an altitude for the cabin to be pressured at even though a plane often flies upwards of 30,000 feet the cabin is pressurized to the conditions often times no higher than 8000 feet on the Boeing 737 and many other airliners the plane can perform the function of delicately keeping the pressure where it needs to be and can adjust automatically depending on the circumstances however for this to happen the setting on the pressure panel needs to be set to automatic morning arrives in Larnaca the crew of this Helios Airways plane plant their plans for the day today the crew will be making a trip to Prague in the Czech Republic not before making a stopover in Athens as Helios flight 5 - to Captain hans-juergen Merton is a contract pilot from Germany who was hired by Helios over the busy summer season to fly these holiday flights he has over 35 years of flying experience and had even flown for inter flock which was the East German airline before 1990 his first officer today is pompous chair alam booze another experienced member of the crew at age 51 the flight crew must follow a series of checklists to get their plane up and running correctly there are checklists like this for all aircraft step-by-step guides for plans to follow to make sure nothing is missed on this flight the crew unfortunately on three separate occasions fail to notice that the air pressure switch was still selected to the manual position instead of auto by default the settings should be in automatic as checklist for shutting down the aircraft like the crew world and the night before include this switch still being set in the automatic position however the engineer who worked on the plane the night before is not a pilot and doesn't know about these checklists and left it in the manual setting the fly crew simply didn't change the setting on the panel to automatic because of this when the plane takes off it does not pressurize the cabin at 9:07 helios airways flight 5 - - takes off from wanaka enroute to athens five minutes later confusion in the cockpit begins a warning tone is trying to tell them that the cabin pressure is too low what confuses the captain is that this warning tone is the exact same one as a different along that takeoff configuration warning this warning is only ever heard when the crew began a take-off roll with the plane being improperly configured such as the flaps and slats not being in the right position while the stabilizer trim not being set properly another warning one's captain mertin of an air conditioning failure and this is reported to maintenance at 914 meanwhile with the drop of air pressure at around 10 to 12,000 feet the passenger oxygen mask dropped from the ceiling indicated to the passengers and the cabin crew that something is horribly wrong those untrained for breathing at high altitude will begin to feel nauseous and lightheaded the first stage of hypoxia hypoxia is an incredibly dangerous condition or a lack of oxygenated blood to the brain and other vital organs begins to take effect on judgement and the senses all pilots from ppl training are told of the dangers of hypoxia and the effects it can have on a pilot and most important aspect of hypoxia and why it is so dangerous is that often times you do not know that you have it the crew of Helios flight five to two are now hypoxic and at 9:20 they give their last message over the radio before going unconscious the 737 climbs up to its cruise altitude of 34,000 feet just like it was punched into the autopilot because modern airliners use a GPS navigation system the flight management computer the crew before takeoff already entered the entire flight plan for the plane to fly along on its way to Athens and so continues to do so without the crew at 9:37 Helios five to two enters the Athens fi our flight information region Nicosia Center notifies them that they have lost contact with the plane for 40 minutes the air traffic controllers at Athens try to contact the plane at 10:45 arrival time comes and goes with still no contact from the plane now flying above buffets at 10:54 Athens ATC notifies the Greek military of a passenger plane which is not responding to radio calls and two f-16 fighter jets are launched to intercept the plane if there is no input by the pilots once the plane reaches the end of its route it will automatically circle and around its last Waypoint by the time the f-16s arrive the plane is circling around the island of care the fighter pilots tried to see if they can see inside the cockpit they radio back announcing that they say two men slumped over the controls unconscious by this time the plane is now on it was their fuel and soon the engines will flame out this would be where the situation would normally end but at eleven forty nine with the f16 still following the Helios plane they see movement in the cockpit there is one person conscious on board it happens to be flight attendant andreas prodromal prodromal actually held a UK commercial pilot's license and likely had knowledge of the situation he however does not have a type rating on the Boeing 737 was the only one conscious on board he switches the transponder to 7700 which is the emergency squawk it attempts to deliver a mayday message however the plane is still tuned to the Nicosia frequency and cannot be heard over the radio he then waves at the fighter plane and then one minute later at 11:50 the left engine quits and flames out due to fuel starvation at this moment the plane's autopilot disconnects and flies tangent to where it was circling and then begins to descend around ten minutes later the right engine quits and at 12:04 the plane eventually comes down into a hill near gramatical about 25 miles north of athens flight attendant andreas Boudreau Moo had actually steered the aircraft away from the city of Athens avoiding any collision with the city all 121 people on board were killed 103 of those on board were Cypriots 13 were Greek captain hans-juergen Merton was the only German on board of the 121 people on board 22 of them were children [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Disaster Breakdown

Views: 113,090

Rating: 4.9132113 out of 5

Keywords: Helios 522, Helios, Airways, Greece, Cyprus, Boeing 737, Helios flight 522, Anthony Howie

Id: R8XPVHybGV0

Length: 10min 14sec (614 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 22 2017