If the 777 pilot is correct in his assertion that the passengers were depressurized, and radar analyses of the plane rapidly descending are taken into account, this shows an enemy that has no humanity. This is totally cold blooded. Based on past scenerios, the pilots knew the passengers might attempt to retake the cockpit. BTW, the pilots are now the prime suspects.
If the 777 pilot is correct in his assertion that the passengers were depressurized, and radar analyses of the plane rapidly descending are taken into account, this shows an enemy that has no humanity. This is totally cold blooded. Based on past scenerios, the pilots knew the passengers might attempt to retake the cockpit. BTW, the pilots are now the prime suspects.
I'm not saying that the plane wasn't hijacked, I'm saying that some of the ideas proposed don't hold merit.
Here's wikipedia's entry for Boyle's law. Essentially, Boyle's law states that, given a constant amount of gas, as pressure decreases, volume increases. Therefore, a full balloon at 45K' will SHRINK during a descent to 30k'. The change isn't enough to cause organs to burst in a climb or a rapid decompression situation either. You could depressurize the jet and kill everyone aboard, but there would be no reason for a climb/decent/climb to do so. Hell, you could slowly depressurize the cabin and people would be hypoxic before they suspected any foul play. I bet most would just go to sleep. You could 'humanely' put the passengers down by a slow decompression using the aircraft systems or you could just dump the cabin pressure and knock them out in a few seconds. The pilots would just have to shut off the passenger o2 supply, don their masks and dump the pressure differential. Death would be from hypoxia, not ruptured organs.
As for the cell phone thing, I'm not saying that that wasn't their reason for adjusting altitude, but it's an amateur move. Flyers generally have an understanding of what 35k' means w/respect to miles and understand from experience that your phone doesn't come alive until a few thousand AGL at best. Little airplanes will get better signal than airliners because there is less airframe to block reception. Have you ever left your phone on during a commercial flight only to have a text show up on final? It's not because the message was sent when you were on final, it's because you were finally low enough to get reception.
Here's the wikipedia entry on Boyle's law. The pressure sensitive items could burst at altitude if the compartment depressurized, but people don't burst. I get a kick out of watching people with those camel back flip top bottles take their first drink on the jet. We keep the cabin alt at about 5000 feet and Tinker is at about 1200 feet. If people don't take a drink or equalize pressure in the bottle on climb out they normally get a squirt in the face when they flip the nozzle up to take their first drink. The gas in the sealed container couldn't expand, so it increased in pressure causing it to rapidly equalize with the ambient air in the cabin...i.e. squirt.
I'd bet my money that the jet was hijacked and the folks onboard are all dead, but they weren't killed by ruptured organs from a 15k' unpressurized descent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyle's_law
Here's wikipedia's entry for Boyle's law. Essentially, Boyle's law states that, given a constant amount of gas, as pressure decreases, volume increases. Therefore, a full balloon at 45K' will SHRINK during a descent to 30k'. The change isn't enough to cause organs to burst in a climb or a rapid decompression situation either. You could depressurize the jet and kill everyone aboard, but there would be no reason for a climb/decent/climb to do so. Hell, you could slowly depressurize the cabin and people would be hypoxic before they suspected any foul play. I bet most would just go to sleep. You could 'humanely' put the passengers down by a slow decompression using the aircraft systems or you could just dump the cabin pressure and knock them out in a few seconds. The pilots would just have to shut off the passenger o2 supply, don their masks and dump the pressure differential. Death would be from hypoxia, not ruptured organs.
As for the cell phone thing, I'm not saying that that wasn't their reason for adjusting altitude, but it's an amateur move. Flyers generally have an understanding of what 35k' means w/respect to miles and understand from experience that your phone doesn't come alive until a few thousand AGL at best. Little airplanes will get better signal than airliners because there is less airframe to block reception. Have you ever left your phone on during a commercial flight only to have a text show up on final? It's not because the message was sent when you were on final, it's because you were finally low enough to get reception.
Here's the wikipedia entry on Boyle's law. The pressure sensitive items could burst at altitude if the compartment depressurized, but people don't burst. I get a kick out of watching people with those camel back flip top bottles take their first drink on the jet. We keep the cabin alt at about 5000 feet and Tinker is at about 1200 feet. If people don't take a drink or equalize pressure in the bottle on climb out they normally get a squirt in the face when they flip the nozzle up to take their first drink. The gas in the sealed container couldn't expand, so it increased in pressure causing it to rapidly equalize with the ambient air in the cabin...i.e. squirt.
I'd bet my money that the jet was hijacked and the folks onboard are all dead, but they weren't killed by ruptured organs from a 15k' unpressurized descent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyle's_law
They are not needed on the ground and would only clutter atc radar. I can tell when aircraft on the ground have their transponders on when I'm flying, because as I'm coming in to land, my traffic alert system will register a proximity alert, as if I was about to have a midair collision when in reality, i might be the only airborne plane in the vicinity of the airport. Hope that makes sense.
Some larger airports actually do have aircraft operate their transponders on the ground, to be able to track who is who since there may be a dozen or more aircraft moving on the airport at a given time.
In the airplanes I fly, we activate the transponder just before takeoff and turn it off just after landing.
Does anyone have a reference for time to death from hypoxia? My old notes (very old, I went through flight school 2 and 1/2 decades ago) say 6-10 seconds time of useful consciousness at 45,000K' cabin altitude even less if decompression is explosive or sudden but has no reference for time to death. We were primarily concerned with how long crew members had to react to get on oxygen before becoming useless.
BTW 0311 when we went through hypobaric (lower atmospheric pressure) chamber training we did do a rapid decompression at mid-30k equivalent IIRC. Hypoxia started to set in fairly rapidly but it wasn't immediate. However, the "rapid internal gas expansion" did with result being...catastrophic farting but no organ explosions. however, it is possible for the gas expansion to cause pain, even severe pain, depending on where the gas is specifically located.
That's good info mugsy.
It's also important to note that people are only speculating that the cabin was depressurized during/after the climb to 45K....there is no proof that that occurred. There is even some doubt as to the accuracy of the radar reporting. http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngog...ngers-have-survived-777-ascent-to-45000-feet/
It's also important to note that people are only speculating that the cabin was depressurized during/after the climb to 45K....there is no proof that that occurred. There is even some doubt as to the accuracy of the radar reporting. http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngog...ngers-have-survived-777-ascent-to-45000-feet/
LOL - you must work with a bunch of us "Over-40 types"
