38. Captain Hypoxia - Part 2 - Helios 522

You ready to get started?

Let's do it.

You're listening to Inside the Aluminum Tube. This podcast has adult language and sometimes contains graphic descriptions of accidents and incidents, often resulting in death. If you're scared to fly, proceed with caution.

Sir, are your pants meowing? Yeah, you interested? Pull up. No, the plane is about to crash. Wind shear.

You're looking a little anxious, Kent. Yeah. Increase climb. Only if you really need me to. Threw his clothes

off, had an accident, got his treat, and went night -night. Oh, so like some dumb bro

shit. Okay, cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool.

30, 20, 10. Clear of conflict.

Okay. Welcome back after a long break. This is an Aviation History Podcast, which looks at events in aviation history like air disasters, accidents, incidents, mishaps, and just crazy events. I'm Shannon Baker. I'm your host and the creator of this podcast. If you want to see pictures of the events and enhance your experience, you should follow me on Instagram where you can see the pictures I post about the episodes, both in the carefully labeled story highlights and in the gallery. And that is at AluminumTube on Instagram. You can also email me your ideas or any of your feedback at AluminumTubePodcast at gmail .com. Please visit ALTubePodcast .com or AluminumTubePodcast .com. And there you can listen episodes, read about our co -hosts, and find the archive of all my stuff. I do ask that you please tell your friends about the show and leave a review. That helps a lot. If you've listened to other episodes, you already know that I always have a co -host who is not an aviation expert, and their role is to ask questions that will help you better understand what actually happened.

So today I have a returning co -host and it's Erin O 'Connor. Yay! I haven't had you as a co -host since episode 24 in December of 2021.

Damn, time flies. It's been a long time. I know.

We have a lot to catch up on.

So do I.

You go first. What's

happened in three years of my life?

Where have you been since 2021? That was kind of COVID times, right?

Yeah, December 2021 was probably

kind of wrapping up.

Like a six months into the reopen of life.

Yep. And then, you know, where were you then and where are you now? Just give

me a

little quick recap.

I'm still in Brooklyn. I was in Brooklyn at the time. Still working remotely mainly. Doing a little agency work is back in place. Travel is back. Which is really awesome that you

are working remotely. Travel is back.

Yes. Now feel like an aviation expert because I'm on planes again. And I think I just didn't travel as much as I wanted to pre -COVID because I have this idea of I'll travel when I'll travel when. And then when the world is pretty much close to shutdown, you're like, well, time is now.

I think that I see this in airlines. The airline I work for goes crazy. We absolutely understaffed.

who are hiring pilots all the time. And people are spending more money on travel now than they are on retail goods. And so that was like an economic point recently about like how target stock is down because people are not spending their money on fixing up their houses. They're spending money on experiences.

Yeah, I think definitely. And I have a background in entertainment and something is taking a big dip is tech and gaming because, you know, 2021 was probably at their peak and now people are getting out from behind the screen and I think that that is showing itself by the influx of travel.

Well, I fully support that, as you know.

Mm -hmm, yeah, I'm on your team, I'm on your side now. It also

helps pay my bills.

Yeah, I'm glad I'm helping you pay your bills because I'm enjoying

it. Well, let's see what's happened with me. So if you listened to episode one, I was a 787 first officer. Since then, I was an Airbus captain. Then I was an Airbus LCA, which is a line -check airman or a line -check pilot and then I decided that I didn't like that airplane anymore because of the places it goes and I decided to move to the Boeing 737 which is actually the airplane we're talking about today but it's for schedule and stuff like that let's see I'm getting married in October and you're invited so you're gonna join us in Italy I hope so So yeah, big updates on my end, but you're still doing the same thing.

I'm doing the same thing, but now I'm traveling, and one of them is your wedding.

I love that.

It has been a long time since I recorded, and the reason for that is because when I was on the last fleet, the Airbus fleet, I couldn't get days off. I couldn't trade trips. I also couldn't get good trips. My schedule wasn't as good, and then I was an LCP, which is a line check pilot, and that really blew up into a whole monster and I just didn't have time because as you know these things take me a while to write. So was feeling overwhelmed.

Yeah, for sure, with shitty flights.

Right, exactly, and a ton of work

and lots of like overnights and like I said, Omaha and Buffalo and places that I don't really wanna be. Just,

I mean. Omaha, Nebraska. Exactly, oh my goodness. Sounds in the dark, cold.

Des Moines,

I can't even count how many nights I spent in Des Moines, Iowa. It's like. Des Moines. I just, ugh.

I got tired of it.

It's Wayne's World when they're like, we're in Delaware. Exactly. It's Delaware.

So the good thing is, I have my first, well not my first flight, but one of, you know, my first schedule. So I get 25 hours in Punta Cana. That's

awesome.

So the move is already paying off.

Oh, hell yeah. So. Hmm, Omaha, Nebraska. Right. Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Exactly,

I will take the Punta Cana, please. So that

was really the reason that I switched and I'm glad that I did it anyway. And it also gave me enough, it's also given me enough time to write. Cool,

sounds like nothing good has happened in your life since we spoke last, so I'm really sorry it's been slow. Oh my goodness, yes I agree.

But so that's out of the way, you want to dive right in? Let's

do it.

Okay so the airplane, we're gonna be talking about the Boeing 737. The 737 has a very long and a little bit spotty history, but it's so common, and I'm kind of surprised that I hadn't talked about it before. It just hadn't come up in one of my podcasts before, because it really, really is the most ubiquitous jet right now in the world by numbers, but also by operators. They're just more of these than

anything else.

Now, aren't they like in the news? Are we seeing blips on the Boeing radar?

Yeah, we had, recently we had the door come off of

a -

Casual, just door departure. Casual off. Yeah, on a 737 MAX 9. That was also the airplane that they had the problems with the MCAS, and there were two crashes. There was a Lion Air and an Ethiopian Air. So Boeing, again, 737, spotty history, But very popular airplane very reliable airplane Well,

would you say that it has spotty history because it's so widespread like it is the majority in some ways

I would like to say that but the problem is if I say that I would be wrong because the Airbus Airbus has a comparable aircraft called the a320 and the a320 does not have the same spotty history and its numbers of Production are extremely close. So if you're gonna be on a narrow -body airplane these days you're really going to be on an A320, which is an Airbus A320, the airplane I just got off of, or a Boeing 737. This is really like the two types of airplanes as far as like short to moderate legs,

that's what you're gonna be on.

There's

a lot of factors, but I think

- I get to say, like when I book my flight, do I know what I'm flying on?

No, you do not.

So I don't get to say.

Well, in a way you do, cause you can see what you're flying on, but sometimes you're just stuck.

Yeah, by the time I get there, I'm in. What am I gonna say, no?

Exactly, I mean, when you book it, it'll probably tell you what kind of airplane, and then you could make a choice, but if you're gonna fly, let's say you're gonna fly on Delta, that's the one airplane they operate on that route. So now you're gonna have to move to a different company. If it's Southwest, they operate one type, so you don't get a say.

If it's United, again, you might operate one airplane on that route, but nothing else. So sometimes you just

I just gotta go with it.

You got to go with it. But I mean in truth, they're all very safe Extremely safe in the last two years. There has not been a single crash of a commercial jetliner in the

world Makes me feel better.

The last two years have been the safest years in aviation history

Why do you think the last two years have been I

think we're reaching apex of aviation safety. I really do I think we have learned our lessons. So well pilots are very well trained We've now caught up to, like I said, like the apex. We're there. We've kind of almost corrected all the risks.

Yeah.

Now there are inherent risks always. The door came off. This is not something that

- Casual.

Alaska Airlines did. And honestly, there were only a few airframes that had that, there was like bolts missing. It was an assembly flaw.

Oh, it was a human flaw.

It was a human error that they forgot or put in the wrong hardware to a door that wasn't being used, and it was a plug. So the door came off because the wrong hardware was used.

Got it, got it.

That's a human error, that it would be something very difficult to control for.

So there's always gonna be those small things. And I call that small because nobody died, the airplane didn't crash.

I saw the videos, again, casual, it was like driving in a Jeep with no door on it. I couldn't believe it. I not believe that.

just sitting there, like

casually. were they not freaking out? Like what were they on? I would love to know.

I want

some of that.

A little pre -flight Xanny, my friend? Probably. Yeah. So

that so that kind of is like we kind of have reached almost apex safety in a way and now there will be a crash.

There

will be.

Listen to this podcast. What date is it being released? Yeah,

I'm not saying there's not gonna be a crash. There will be a crash. We haven't corrected all the risk out of it but back in the 90s and 2000s airplanes were Crashing all the time. And if you go back farther than that, it was even more common than that That's

why

we've gotten to the point where we're just we're so good at what we do.

Thank goodness Thank you for your service, but

the Boeing 737 has a really long history. So let's dive into that real quick

You

go for it.

The 737 is a narrow -body passenger jet narrow -body means

not full body like

your wine Narrow body means that when you walk into the airplane, there's one aisle down the center

oh okay they don't have that little island in the middle with two lanes on either side that's it that's called a wide body

a wide body would have two would have two and a narrow body has one aisle down the center got

it

it's a narrow body passenger jet it was originally developed to supplement the Boeing 727 which is long out of service now on shorter routes and financially thinner routes.

Financially thinner routes?

Financially thin. Like we want to operate a cheap airplane because we're not making a lot of money on this route.

What? That's a thing?

Oh yes. Very much. They want to operate a cheap

airplane or a small airplane to save fuel. It's

the house wine. It really is. Yes. Noted.

Okay. So that's how they designed it and it was supplementing lift for a bigger airplane. That airplane is no longer in service. But anyway, the 737 has two engines under the wing, and it's the same width as Boeing's very first jet, the 707.

Oh, there have been several models then. 707, we're at 37. Yeah,

there have been several models. In fact, there is only one number left in the Boeing line of aircraft. So there was a 707, a 717, 27, 37, 47, 57, 67, 777, and a 787. There is only a 797 left and after that Boeing says they're gonna use letters.

Oh I thought they were like we're done we've completed our masterpieces.

We're gonna go to the 800s now. No, they Yeah. They said that they were predicting

to use letters as

the center. Why?

So it would be a 7A7. Oh. Or a 7B7. I don't know

why Boeing does that. this. If somebody that lives in an apartment that is a lettered apartment with a non -lettered apartment with the same numbers immediately next to it, y 'all are lazy.

It is lazy.

It's very lazy. It's very lazy marketing. It's confusing for the Postal Service. It will now be confusing for our records in history when it comes to aviation. This is not you are not wrong You are not wrong about that complaint card to be filed

So but anyway, they use the same tooling from the 707 to build the 737 saves money But they just built it smaller. It's typically configured in two classes with first -class seating where you're to an island two, so four total, and then a larger economy class where you're three aisle and three.

Okay.

Okay, so six

abreast

in the back and four abreast in the front. It was initially designed in 1964.

Cute.

The initial 737 -100 made its first flight in April of 1967 and entered service in February of 1968. Its launch customer was Lufthansa.

What's

that? Lufthansa is the flag carrier of Germany. Oh. The lengthened 737 -200 entered service in April 1968 so they've already started to just stretch it out and make it longer. Genius. Exactly and with each evolution the seating capacity got larger and larger and the fuselage just got longer. It grew in length, but it never grew in girth. It just got longer and longer.

Is that how engineering works?

That is how aviation engineering works. That doesn't even work

in baking.

No, but they just start adding sections, front and rear, and they're balancing the airplane, and they add a little bit in the back, add a little bit in the front, add a little bit in the back, add a little bit in the front. In 1984, the 737, 300, 400, and 500 variants. See where these numbers again. It's just like, come on.

What is this? Whose line is it anyway?

Pretty much. They were upgraded with more fuel efficient engines and seating up to 168 passengers. Then in 1997, the 737 Next Generation.

Next Gen. Next Gen.

Star

Trek.

That is about when Star Trek Next Generation. Yeah. I don't even know if that's related, but probably. It

is now!

So they changed the avionics, they made the models again, updated the engines, and they made the wing bigger, they upgraded the cockpits, and they upgraded the maximum seating capacity now to 215. Okay. And they had the 600, the 700, the 800, and the 900 models. Just get

ready. We're

just going along, right? Then in 2017 Boeing introduced yet another iteration of this same 1965 design and here's where the controversial 737 MAX 789 and eventually the 10, although the 10 hasn't been certified yet, comes in. So these new versions could

seat anywhere from 130 to 210 people. They entered service in 2017. We're going to come back to the controversy in a second. Let's finish the model history. The US military operates many Boeing 737s in various configurations from airborne radar platforms to submarine detection platforms and a whole variety in between. Boeing runs a program to convert older airline units into freighters. The airplane essentially is a do -it -all kind of midsize airliner. Carries passengers, does military stuff, can haul freight.

The 737 is starting to sound like the Spider -Man franchise. Like we've seen it several times, we enjoy it, we know we like it, let's just revamp it a little bit. Let's just keep remaking it. You

are

exactly correct. But as of today everybody liked it so much that there are 11 ,700 Boeing 737s that have been delivered and until 2019 the 737 was the highest -selling commercial aircraft in history but it was surpassed in 2019 by by the competing, we talked about this for a minute, the A320, but Boeing maintains the record in total deliveries, meaning the order book for the Airbus. The order book for the Airbus is thicker, but Boeing has delivered more 737s. So basically, Airbus has more orders, but Boeing is able to churn them out faster. Ah,

okay. So

there's still some more 737s out there. So let's go back to that controversy. The 737 MAX, which was designed to compete with the A320 Neo. This is just an updated A320. Again, it's that same thing. It's Marvel, right? We like

the

one franchise and then we just go to the other franchise. We revamp that, we revamp this and they compete against each other. This is all we're doing. The 737 Maxis were completely grounded worldwide between March 2019 and November 2020. So over a year following two fatal crashes, the crash of Lion Air 610, and the crash of Ethiopian Airlines 302.

Damn.

Okay, this was due to the failure of a subsystem of the speed trim system known as the MCAS. We don't need to go into technicals about it. In these two incidents, which I will cover later in the podcast, the aircraft automatic trim system failed and made the aircraft start trimming on its own. What

does that mean, trimming?

So, the tail of the aircraft, the horizontal stabilizer, moves up and down as the aircraft gains and loses speed and changes configuration.

So, the movement is the trimming? Correct. Okay.

The movement is the trimming. When we pull back on the yoke, we move the elevator, which is kind of a little flat behind that, but what's mainly involved in balancing the airplane and keeping it at altitude and and keeping flying straight and level is the horizontal stabilizer trim. And that's what we're talking about here. So when the horizontal stabilizer trim runs away, it means it's not being commanded by the pilot. It's just gonna

keep

going until it hits the stop.

Okay.

But eventually it cannot be overpowered by the pilots anymore. It would have to be manually trimmed. So you would have to turn it off, take the power away from it, and then manually trim it back.

It gets a little bit technical, but we don't have to worry about it. The reason there's controversy is because there's controversy surrounding what happened to those two airplanes, but there's a lot of controversy surrounding the actions of the crews, mostly. In any case, a lot of people died. 157

people. Did die on each plane? Both planes. Oh, yes.

157 on the Ethiopian and 189 on Lion Air.

Oh my goodness.

I can go into details here if you'd like, but long story short, Boeing was somewhat at fault for a faulty system, and I may get some heat about this, but the flight crew was also equally at fault.

Like

I said, I may get some hate mail for saying that, but I'm certified to fly this airplane. I fly it as a captain. Like all incidents and accidents we cover on the show, it's not simple. It's very nuanced. This is not what we're talking about. We're not gonna talk about MCAS today. It's very nuanced. It is both the fault of Boeing as an organization. Each individual aircraft had its own failure and the crews did not respond in an appropriate way. So it's a very kind of a

multi... Yeah it's not a singular cause. No. It's yeah it's a combination of everybody's input.

And we talked about this because about three weeks ago a 737 MAX 9 had an explosive of decompression where an unused aft emergency exit panel came off in flight.

Yeah.

This was due to a failure to properly secure the panel. The bolts came out and the 737 MAX 9s were again grounded. They are no longer grounded as we speak.

Well it was a quick turnaround. They identified the problem. That's it. They were grounded.

It took four to eight hours to fix each unit. They went in. They did an inspection. They said this is what's broken. Fixed it. I have complete faith in the airplane. I'm about to fly one over the Atlantic Ocean for four hours.

No issue. Not worried about the door flying off. No,

not at all. Not worried about the door.

So here's the rest of the controversy though and it's a little bit more nuanced. The 737 was never meant to last as long as it has.

Then why is it still here? It

was never meant to be. We talked about stretched and re -stretched and re -engined.

It's like a double wide. New

avionics. It really

is. It's like a double wide. You've now put a second bathroom on, we're calling it a two -bedder, and it's like, no, it's not what it was made for.

Here's what happened. Capitalism really dictated that in order to satisfy all the airlines around the world, Boeing keep making that airplane. The reason for this is because if you replace an airplane that's as prolific as the 737, every pilot who works for that airline has to be retrained and recertified on the new type. So

for

each type of airplane, you have very specific certification rules. Like I just came off the Airbus, that does not certify me in any way to operate a 737. I had to go to school for six weeks to be certified to operate the 737.

And for how long before you wanted to move to the 737?

Oh boy. I'm at 24 years now.

24 years and you still had to go back to school for six weeks for recertification. Absolutely.

And then I have to fly with a essentially with

the job

I did, a line check pilot yeah but that means for the companies you can imagine that means new simulators and simulators about 30 million dollars each so if you make a new airplane you gotta get new simulators 30 30 million dollars a pop lots of retraining also for an airline like Southwest who only operates 737s that would mean a mixed fleet for them their mechanics are trained their dispatchers they know everything about the 737 so it's Southwest I know so now we're gonna add an Airbus no this

is

why Boeing just keeps releasing the same model again and again they're just responding to the capitalist need yeah

that's it 30 million dollars for a simulator for a singular airplane that you now need to certify hundreds of thousands of people yes I get it man around the world you had me at 30 million dollars for one piece of

machinery so

you can see that Boeing is extremely reluctant to replace the 737 with a new type.

Fine.

I know, but they just keep updating the airplane as they've done over the last 60 years now. The 737 Max 10 isn't even out yet. It'll be the largest 737 ever, but it's still a 737. So all of those pilots can now get into that Max

10. A just got a third bathroom. And an

extra bedroom.

Washer, dryer.

That is correct.

So if Delta wanted to add it to their fleet, they just add it and the same pilots who flew the 500 back in 1997 can now just step right into the max 10

that's wild kind

of neat that they can do that but also you can see a problematic yeah

oh yeah

today we're talking about a company called Helios okay

Helios

Airways it was a low -cost airline that was established back in 1998 on May 15th 2000 it operated its first charter flight to London Gatwick from Cyprus.

Okay.

A charter flight is where like a group of people, like a sports team or a travel group, hires an aircraft just for themselves. Okay,

so they don't own it? No. It's just like, you know, they're... No,

no. It will be operated by a company.

Got

it. In fact, there's no, there's nothing that says you can't start and sell charter groups. So if you, If your whole family said, you know what? Let's take a whole family Vacation and you got 150 people You could go to Delta or United and say I want to charter an airplane and they would go from where to where they give You a price and you say cool.

I had no idea but it makes total sense. We'll do

it independently. Absolutely We do it We do those kinds of flights and they're actually they can be fun because they can be all kinds of different tour groups they can be sports teams, they can be rock bands where they're traveling with like all of their, all

of their support personnel, like yeah. I get a hundred and, we're doing it for the wedding.

Absolutely, there you go, awesome. That's gonna be an expensive one. It operated from Cyprus to Gatwick, but in general, they operated scheduled and charter flights between their home country of Cyprus, which is an island nation off the coast of Greece if you didn't know.

I'll be there in April. Awesome. I know, I'm excited. You're going to Cyprus in April? I am.

Oh my goodness. This is perfect.

I know.

I didn't

even realize.

Well, now you know.

They operated from Cyprus to many European and African destinations, which included places like Athens and London, Manchester, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Prague, Cairo,

Paris, Dublin, Warsaw. Man, we're so remote in the United States. It We are.

I know. We can't just be like, I'm

going to Warsaw. Yeah, even Hawaii. Part of our, quote unquote,

part of our own United States. It's like freaking forever. It's 11 hours from here. Yes! Oh my god. Nobody talks about that enough. When I was 10 hours in flying to Korea, they're like, there's Hawaii. I was like, you're shitting me. There's Hawaii? Y 'all selling me this on every YouTube ad and yet it's a 10 and a half hour flight? Get out of here.

Okay, so the company was, it was headquartered in, on the grounds of the Lenarco International Airport in Lenarco, Cyprus. That's kind of the main airport in Cyprus. They were initially quite successful and in 2004 Helios Airways was acquired by a travel company called Libra, just a travel marketing agency. They were also from Cyprus. The flights ceased on November 7th, 2006 because the company's aircraft were detained and bank accounts frozen by the Cyprus government. We'll talk about that in a minute. So you ready to talk about the date? Let's

do it.

So August 14th of 2005.

So

on this date they're operating a Boeing 737 -300. It was built around 1985. It's 20 years old. Airliners, they normally have a useful life of about 30 years.

Well that's good to know. Yeah, so this

one's in middle age. Yeah. Okay, so it's not like it's crazy bad or anything. It sounds like it's old, like you probably wouldn't drive a 20 year old car around, you might, but a 20 year old airplane is not. Okay

So horse lifespans got it.

It had just flown a flight from London Heathrow the night before it landed around 1 a .m In Cyprus, it was scheduled to leave Lenarca at 9 a .m. And it was going to fly to Athens Make a stop and then on to Prague The first leg of the flight was supposed to take about an hour and a half So they planned like I said to land in Athens around 1030 a .m. deplane some passengers, get fuel, continue to proc. Solid. The captain was a 58 -year -old German contract pilot hired by Helios just for the summer busy holiday season. So a contract pilot is someone who has a lot of experience in types of airplanes, is certified in that airplane, and they're just kind of like working for the company temporarily.

Okay, but we're saying they have a lot of experience. Yeah. Okay, all right.

He's he's probably worked for an airline, He's retired and he's doing contract. He's just like, oh, yeah, I'll work for you for a couple months, right?

But he's not like a temp. He's like seasoned. Yes. Well, okay. All right,

very well trained pilot He had a clean safety record. He'd been flying for 35 years. He had about 17 ,000 hours about one third of all that time was actually in the Boeing 737. All

right,

so he knows his shit Mm -hmm, right? That's a lot of experience. I just say I'm around 10 ,000 hours and I've been flying for 24 years You know,

I'm seeing some flights.

I know I'm telling you a lot of experience So he had a first officer with him the first officer, of course also very experienced 51 year old pilot native of Cyprus that guy had flown for Helios for the past five years He had around 7 ,500 flight hours 4 ,000 in the 737 again a very experienced pilot clean safety record.

Cool solid a team on deck What could go wrong?

There were four flight attendants on board. The lead was a female, age 32. There was another female, 25. There was a 24 -year -old female and a 25 -year -old male. So they're all young. The 25 -year -old male was actually dating the 24 -year -old. Is

that relevant? So they're boyfriend and girlfriend. I want it to be relevant. I want that scandal to be up

in whatever's about to happen. So,

it might be, we'll see what happens. So the aircraft today would be carrying about 115 passengers. it was certified to carry about 135. Okay.

So some open seats. We're Yeah.

Yeah, we're under. Some open seats. 115 passengers and a crew of six. The passengers included 67 people that were getting off in Athens with the remainder continuing on to Prague. The makeup of the passengers was 93 adults, 22 children, 103 of the passengers were Cypriot natives, so natives of Cyprus, and 12 were Greek nationals.

Okay.

Let's see. The 737 had arrived, like I mentioned before, had arrived at Lenarco from London in the early a .m. hours that day, and the previous flight crew had reported a frozen door seal and abnormal noises coming from the right aft service door.

Oh.

So that's the door all the way in the back, basically in the galley, that they use to, the catering trucks will pull up and take carts out and put

them in.

It doubles as an emergency exit. Solid.

But you don't board or deplane from that door, right? That's that's why they call it a service door Okay,

so it's frozen and making weird noises. Yes

They reported the noises to maintenance. They requested a foreign a full inspection of the door which maintenance did and they found no issues But

so what would happen in that like if the crew is telling you there's an issue, but they don't find anything

Sometimes the door seal can be slightly displaced when the door is closed or it can be frozen and if it's frozen and it may not hold the seal, and it would whistle. Yeah. That's not necessarily an indication that anything's wrong with it.

Okay.

That it may be like, oh, the seal's a little worn. It's with inspects,

it's not a good seal. I like this inspection where I'm like, there's weird noises, it's frozen. My car could be in flames. I'll be like, it's fine.

It's fine, it's a weird noise, it's fine.

But let's back up a moment and talk about that door. on December 16th of 2004, so we're nine months prior, right? We're August 14th back to December 16th previous year. During a flight from Warsaw, Poland back to Cyprus, the same aircraft experienced a rapid loss of cabin pressure and the crew made an emergency descent and landing. On that flight, the flight attendants reported to the captain that there had been a loud bang from that same aft service door and that there was a hand -sized hole between the door and the door seal.

Like hand -sized, like a hole, like somebody punched through it? No, like you could slide through

your fingers.

Well no wonder the cabin pressure went down. We a hole in

the door. Right. So the Air Accident and Incident Investigation Board of Cyprus could not conclusively determine the cause of that incident, but they indicated two possibilities. Either an electrical malfunction causing it to

depressurize. They're saying issue when and is a hand -sized hole in the door? So

what they're saying is that the aircraft over -pressurized because of an electrical issue that moves that valve in and out. So the pressure got too big and blew the door seal out and bent

the door.

Does that make sense?

Yes, yes, okay.

But they

couldn't determine if it was an electrical malfunction that had caused the outflow valve to close and cause an over -pressurization, or this is all I could find, an inadvertent opening of the aft service door. So I tried to look at this to look up this event, but I really couldn't find anything on it I don't know what the second thing means inadvertent opening of the F service door

like whoops

Like somebody turned the handle. I'm not sure.

Yeah, like oh they were like, oh, we're mid -flight. I definitely want to open this door Let's do that in here

But it's worth noting that there was some damage the damage was then repaired the aircraft was returned to service with no further issues okay

again I'm grilling the check the maintenance I'm like what's going on here with this door people are we really looking at it the way we should I

agree

and the first officer is just with you for five years he worked on this airplane on and off and each time he worked on this airplane he had repeatedly complained to the captain and others including his mom about the aircraft getting cold and it was unable

to get in the tea

like they couldn't keep the cabin warm.

That's wild. So

the guy like, it was written up. During the 10 preceding weeks to this, to the date we're talking about, the environmental control system was inspected seven times and repaired three times.

Did they find an issue each time that somehow was not the thing? What are they fixing here?

They keep repairing it and it keeps getting written up and they

keep repairing it. I think she's ready to go out to pasture.

I think that they're probably being cheap been not replacing the component but like using

a rebuilt

component or or like oh no it's okay

we repaired

it but it's it's the original component but we've repaired it now I'm not exactly sure

if you don't know and I certainly don't I'm not

exactly sure what they were repairing but it was written up many times prior to our date today okay

so let's get back to the track record is there we're like this plain social worker this is documented it

is it is so let's get back to this day the maintenance report that the previous crew had made resulted in an inspection which was carried out by an aircraft technician but in this case because there was a problematic aircraft an actual engineer was involved due to the consistent write -ups so not only they have an aircraft technician they actually had an aircraft engineer so They have two sets of eyes looking at this airplane because they're saying, hey, this could be an

issue. Yeah, for sure.

The maintenance personnel and the engineer inspected the door. They found no issues. They performed a pressurization leak check. And that means in order to carry out this check without turning on the airplane engines and taking it aloft, the pressurization system has to be set to manual. They have to pull some circuit breakers. and then they have to essentially simulate that it's pressurizing like it's in the air. Because they want to check the door seals and make sure it's not

leaking. I everybody on that plane

appreciates you want to check that.

Absolutely, so they did this. They set the pressurization system to manual. They used the APU, which is a small jet engine in the back of a jet that helps to start the engines. It can also provide air conditioning and electrical power. It's an auxiliary power. Okay, the test was good. They found no issues the technician and the engineer however did not reset the pressurization panel. They left it in the manual mode. They did not reset it to auto on completing a completion of the test. There's an auto and a manual. They left it in manual. They did not reset it to auto. That is actually really common though for when maintenance comes on an airplane you get in and you check all the switch positions and it's kind of like, I'm gonna look for an Easter egg.

As a pilot, we of - I'm what you all left behind. Exactly.

As a pilot, we kind of know you get on and like a switch that normally would stay in the on position is in the off position. It's not uncommon for that to happen.

I'm just saying, if you are,

if I'm gonna get behind the wheel of my vehicle and somebody has switched it from automatic to manual, I'm dead.

Yeah, yeah. But we go through, so our cockpit pre -flight inspections, you go through every switch, and you make sure it's set in the correct position. That's what you

do.

That's part of our checks.

Anyway, the pilots, the flight attendants, they got on the airplane, they completed their pre -flight checks, they got everything set up, and the passengers got on board. They overlooked the pressurization system settings twice during the pre -flight check. The pilots overlooked it twice.

Now, what are we looking at here, this button? Is it, what's it shaped like?

Where does it sit?

It's actually just a knob. It sits over the head of the first officer and It's a knob next to a bunch of other knobs turn it one way. It auto turn it the other way. It says man Okay, so it's turned to the man position. It should be turned to the auto position now if it's in the manual position You manually control the outflow valve with a switch which pressurizes or depressurizes the airplane That's in case the automatic system doesn't

operate

or fails now You can control the pressurization yourself in the auto position. It just does it by itself. Okay, it pressurizes correctly It depressurizes correctly

seemingly not impossible to fly in manual. All

right. I got a picture for you, by the way I'll post this on the Instagram. So let me show you this pressurization panel and you'll see this sits above the first officer's head Do you see where it says auto?

Alternates and manual. I'm glad you showed me this because I yeah I guess I could see it there's

a lot of switches up there right

but like this auto and manual this is is this what we're talking about or this would

not be the round one yeah like this feels like visually I can see the difference between these two right this one's tighter and I'm like yeah

but it's on the checklist

it's on the checklist

so they did miss it on the checklist but But this is some complacency and also just some bias. It never gets moved. It's expectation bias. You it to be in the same position. And I know I've done this. I have done this. There'll be a checklist item and I will say, checked on. And my first officer will look at me and go, that's off. You've been flying for nine hours or it's the early ass morning. You have an expectation bias that is always in the same position. you look at it, your brain just does not register that thing.

So I'm

not defending them, I'm just saying I kind of get it.

Like I understand that you can miss something, even though, because you're just expecting it to be in

the same place,

that same thing, it never gets moved. Why would we, the only time we would move the switch to manual, essentially like an emergency or an abnormal, that the checklist told us to move it to manual. But

they're made aware of the issues that they had at 1 a have seen it, yes.

They would have seen that the aircraft was written up. So again, when you know maintenance has been on board, you really want to like look for the Easter egg.

How

are

you trying to get me here? What

am I missing? I

do understand that. I mean, I would imagine I look over things like that at work all the time, but my job doesn't require the safety of 165 people at one time.

Right.

Well, they missed the switch position. I showed you the switch. I'll post it to Instagram. And the airplane took off. They missed it in the pre -flight check. They missed it in the after start check. Once they started the aircraft and they were ready to take off, they took off at 9 .07 with the switch still set to manual. The aft outflow valve was partially open. Then they missed the pressurization panel setting again on the after takeoff checklist now it's getting a little ridiculous so now they've missed it three times

are they checking yeah

that's a really great question or are they just reading it yeah are they even looking at

it it's two people it's two people and I like your first officer first off yeah yeah what a good dude where you're like cool and he's like not cool bro not cool exactly like it's like proofreading for some actually I really enjoy proofreading for that reason where I'm not necessarily reading for the substance of it I'm just looking for the grammatical errors and the spelling errors.

Okay, so that's actually a really good, that's a good equivalency, like when you get in an airplane after maintenance, that's kind of the switch that needs to switch in your brain. You're like, I'm not taking this airplane flying, I'm not in the, we're gonna go fly mode, I'm in the, I'm gonna search for the problem mode. And then after you find a problem or don't find a problem, now you can change your mindset a little bit and go, okay, now I'm gonna set it up to fly.

Yeah, yeah. Right? Especially because you got three checks in there. You do. And two of them are before you even take off. So I feel like, yeah, get your proofreader out

because that's your first run at it.

So now the outflow valve that's supposed to close after you take off and then it's supposed to vary. Electronically, it holds the pressure in the cabin. Keeps it from over pressurizing, keeps it from under pressurizing. It's just about halfway. It's just at a fixed halfway position. An outflow valve is not a small valve, we think of a valve, this is more like a 12 by 12 inch door.

That's a huge valve.

That's a big valve, right? It opens and closes. It's a door that opens and closes, it's not really a valve. We call it a valve, it is a door that opens and closes. If it opens, pressure comes out of the cabin, making the altitude climb in the cabin. If it closes, pressure increases in the cabin, essentially making the altitude in the cabin lower.

So we're at halfway mark here we're kind of halfway we're not thinking anything at this

no it's just it's just sitting at halfway so what happened was that as the air aircraft climbed the pressure inside the cabin gradually decreased because the pressure that the engines were putting into the cabin was just dumping out through the partially yeah nobody's either manually working it which is what you'd have to do in this position yeah or turn it to auto let it

so that's my Next question, like, is there a point where you get to flip the switch mid -flight or would you have to ground the plane to turn it to auto? No,

you could flip it anytime.

Really? Yeah. All right, so we're only now just starting to notice an issue.

Yes, so as Helios 522, which is the flight number, passed through an altitude of 12 ,000 feet, the cabin altitude warning horn started sounding and it started to buzz. So it's a buzzer and it goes, meep, meep,

meep. And just in the cockpit. We're not hearing that as, okay, all right. Just

the cockpit. That buzzer is meant to tell the crew that the cabin altitude is too high. The warning should have prompted the crew to stop climbing, but here's where the bowing part gets a little weird. But that horn was misidentified by the crew as the takeoff configuration warning horn. And I'm gonna tell you what this means in a second. But the reason it was misidentified is because those two alerts share the same sound.

Oh no. They do. Come on.

I know, and there's no light to tell the difference. So let's imagine you're driving down the road in your car and you hear a bing, you look up on the dash. It's the same bing, whether your check engine light came on or whether you have a low tire, okay? It's that same bing, but the car tells you.

Yeah.

Okay, there's kind of a way that the pilot should have known because the takeoff configuration horn can only sound when the aircraft is on the ground and it's meant to alert them that the aircraft is not in takeoff configuration which means it

doesn't have

the correct flap setting or the trim isn't set correctly

so if it's in flight they can't assume that that's what it is if

it's in flight it's always going to be the pressurization okay

so they know this

but they thought it was a malfunctioning takeoff configuration why

Why would the assumption to be that it's not doing its job. You're not doing your job. Exactly.

So don't blame the

technology So they

think that it's a malfunctioning takeoff configuration warning horn. They misidentify it when the truth is it's actually doing exactly what yes

It is literally doing the only thing it's supposed to do it.

That's it. It's got one job. It's doing its job

It's got one job. So

the warning like I said should have prompted the crew to stop climbing, but it was misidentified now Now, newer models have a light in addition to a horn. That differentiates. The horn is still the same, but there's a light. Now, so if you hear the horn, you can look up and you can see either takeoff configuration warning or cabin altitude.

Okay, well, that's a good improvement. I'm not mad at that, but.

So, like I said, the big takeaway here is the takeoff configuration horn can only sound when the aircraft is on the ground, but like I said, it's the same alert, okay? Mm

-hmm.

Oh boy. In the next few minutes, several warning lights on the overhead panel in the cockpit illuminated while the horn continued to buzz. Both of the equipment cooling lights, warning lights, came on to indicate that there was low airflow going through the cooling fans to cool the equipment. There was low airflow because there was low pressure in the cabin so the fans can't blow very much air it's basically a little switch that goes hey there's not enough air so the switch clicks down and turns on the light

so we have several warnings going off here right

the passenger oxygen light came on because the oxygen masks dropped at 14 ,000 feet

seems seems appropriate the

passenger oxygen masks came down yeah they dropped at 14 ,000 feet and the light that tells the pilots, hey, the oxygen masks dropped, that came on.

Is that like an embarrassing moment for a pilot when the oxygen masks drop down? Because like at this point, we're in the back of the plane, I've got my chardonnay, I'm balls deep in whatever

I'm gonna watch for the hour I'm in this flight, and I don't know, I don't hear an alarm, and you all have everything at your disposal in this moment to think that there could be something wrong and now we're aware, we're like, oh damn, Now the passengers are aware, but remember

that this is 2005. So we are post 9 -11. There is a ballistic door between the pilots and the cabin, and they don't know what's going on back there besides the light or the flight attendant calling them. So the flight attendants didn't call

them. So what are they doing? So they've, they've written off the horn.

Yup. And I'm, I'm actually about to tell you. So the captain calls Helios operations center. Okay.

And this is pretty shortly after takeoff. They're still on that initial climb and he reports that the takeoff configuration warning horn is on and that the cooling equipment Normal and alternates are offline. We just talked about that. The fans aren't moving any air enough air to move

Basically, he's on the radio trying

to figure out what's wrong Ironically the captain was speaking to the same engineer that had worked on the aircraft the night before no, no, I'm sorry He didn't work on the air on the aircraft the night before they did the pressurization test early that morning Okay,

but he was still the engineer the same the engineer. Okay,

same engineer So so the captain repeats a little bit confusedly He says cooling ventilation fan lights on. Okay, the engineer then asks Can you confirm the pressurization panel is set to auto?

He knew he read the symptoms He

read the symptoms

and

the captain ignored that call.

Oh stop stop fourth time.

Yep. He ignored the call Though we know he heard it because it was on the cockpit voice recorder The captain was fixated on the equipment cooling lights that were illuminated and the engineer Repeated the question about the pressurization system being an auto and again The question was ignored because the captain was already experiencing early onset hypoxia.

Oh shoot. What's hypoxia?

Hypoxia is where the pressure in the atmosphere drops to a certain point and the Density of the air drops to a certain point that you are unable to get enough oxygen to power your body So some of the early onset symptoms

of essentially lack of oxygen to the brain are confusion general cognitive dysfunction ringing in ears tunnel vision Oh, the captain is suffering from early.

What about first officer? What's he doing? We don't hear

him

Why don't we hear him? I'm

not sure. He's already getting hypoxia He again ignores the question and he responds with where are my equipment cooling circuit breakers? So he's very fixated on these equipment cooling fans.

He's tunneled. It's the only tunnel vision on these, absolutely, on these equipment cooling fans, right? Exactly.

Had he reached and turned the pressurization to auto, it

would have

fixed every problem.

Everything would have gone away. So unfortunately, this is the last transmission that came from the pilots.

This is always like the tragic part in this, right? Is like that, what's the last communication?

But this one's a little bit different because the autopilot was still on. Okay. So Helios 522 continues to climb. Very bad because hypoxia only gets worse. It's

not gonna get any better.

Also, with the flight deck door being a ballistic door, the passengers and the flight attendants are unable to get into the cockpit. Remember, they're back there. They have oxygen already.

Yes, oh so they're fully aware and they're safe. But they can't get in the cockpit at all? No. The flight attendants can't open it no is it still like that there

is a key to get into the flight deck and one of the flight

attendants knows

where the key is it's a hidden key

okay well that makes me happy now okay I wish there had been a key then there

was

so the passengers and the flight attendants they're unable to get into the cockpit to make matters worse the passenger oxygen comes from individual oxygen generators, chemical oxygen generators, they last for 12 minutes.

Okay. The

reason the units last for 12 minutes is in case you have a sudden depressurization like we said with Alaska Airlines, you put on your oxygen mask, the pilots initiated descent, and 12 minutes of oxygen is enough. Yeah.

You're not gonna be... We're we're going up. We're going

up,

we're going the

wrong way. we're not stopping the airplane from climbing. So in 12 minutes, all

the passengers

run out of oxygen. Yeah. I'm

smiling, I don't know why. Oh my goodness. This tragic.

It is. So we talked about why it's 12 minutes. Well, Helios 522 climbs until it levels off at 34 ,000 feet. That was initial cruise altitude. They have that set. The autopilot climbs up, levels off, knows exactly what it's doing. Autothrottles set themselves, it's flying its route. Oh,

God.

The not needed at this point. Well,

good, because they're not available.

34 ,000 feet, 10 ,000 meters or so, between 9 .30 and 9 .40, that's about 30 to 40 minutes into the flight. And Nicosia ATC, which is in Greece, repeatedly attempts to contact Helios 522, but they never have any success. at 937 the aircraft passed out of Cyprus airspace and into Athens airspace without making contact with Athens oh

my goodness and

remember that this is after 9 -11 so the airplane is now heading towards Athens so it's definitely seen as a threat Athens is a very populated city no contact with the pilots aircraft heading toward the city yeah

so there's have they commute have the towers communicated his Cyprus communicated to Athens, like, coming in hot, can't make contact.

Right, Nicosa does call and nobody can get them. Athens Control makes 19 attempts to contact the aircraft without success. And at 10 .40, this is an hour later.

Oh my God. And everybody's out without oxygen. They're just gone.

After an hour of not talking to the airplane, the 737 -300 enters a holding pattern over Athens Airport.

What does that mean, a holding pattern? So a

holding pattern is the racetrack pattern So

you just you get to a fix

and you just basically fly in an oval shape

His autopilot can't take it any further because

that's called what's called a clearance limit So they had a hold programmed in there as their clearance limit and the autopilot was like well You want me to hold now? The airplane will hold forever So at this point the Greek military decided to intervene believing that it may be a possible terrorism incident, okay Oh my god, I hate all of this.

And 11 .05, two F -16s from Hellenic Air Force were scrambled to get visual contact with the 737 -300. They intercept the passenger jet in the holding pattern at 11 .25 a .m. They pull up extremely close to the 737. The F -16 tucks itself on top of the left wing so the pilot literally is meters away from the cockpit.

Oh my goodness, I didn't even know this was possible. So

the f -16 just tucks itself down literally looks over probably the length of its wingspan only a few meters away and what they found was the first officer is slumped motionless over the controls okay but the captain is the captain seat is

empty. Is empty? Empty

so they also report that oxygen masks were dangling in the passenger in the passenger cabin because

we knew that Yeah.

They could also see some passengers slumped over with their oxygen masks on. Oh

god. They

ran out of oxygen.

Because yeah, we've been up there forever now. Right,

forever.

They got 12 minutes.

The F -16s establish themselves off of the wings of the aircraft and they just watch it. By now they know how much fuel, because they talked to Helios Dispatch, they know how much fuel is on board the airplane, they know how much longer it could hold. But they are concerned that if it ran out of fuel facing Athens That they would have to shoot it down Because they don't want it to crash. Yeah to the city obvious death and destruction to

the

people on the ground

What a horrific scene. That's

it. But then much to the surprise of the flight crew at 1149 a .m. The 25 year old male flight attendant enters the cockpit,

and he has

a supplemental oxygen bottle slung over his shoulder, and he sits down in the captain's seat.

You're kidding! Nope. Get out of here. So Romeo of Romeo and Juliet is coming in to save the day. 25 year old flight attendant kicking it with the 24 year old flight attendant is like, here hold my beer, I'm Tom Cruise, let's make this happen. So

this is a supplemental oxygen bottle or in other terms a therapeutic oxygen bottle and we would use these bottles for passengers under duress.

So how long like where are we at like where are we at in time? So

it's 1149 a .m. they took off at 907.

So what has he been doing this whole time? We're

not sure. Okay. They think that he came to.

Like he got sick and then all of a sudden was like there's this thing let me try and get it. Right, that he kind of like

came back a bit and was able to have some wits about him and get a therapeutic oxygen bottle. We know he got that therapeutic oxygen bottle and now the therapeutic oxygen bottle has a significant amount of oxygen in it.

Okay, not 12 minutes?

No, not 12 minutes. It has

a cylinder and it's about, you know, two and a half feet long. It carries enough oxygen for therapeutic oxygen and there are several of these bottles on board.

Yeah. So is he the only one with one?

He's the only one.

What about his love interest? What about Juliet? We

don't see her. So his name is Andreas and get this. Andreas held a commercial pilot's license issued to him by the UK government.

Because why wouldn't he? You know?

Right. A commercial pilot's license allows a person to fly for money but they're not an air transport pilot. So think about like somebody who tows banners over the beach or is an aerial photographer that does like survey work on the ground, or maybe flies tiny charters, tiny small charter airplanes, to be a flight instructor you have to have a commercial pilot's license. Got

it.

Because that is what allows you to get paid to do it, okay?

All right, Andreas. But he's

not qualified to fly a 737.

Yeah, oh yeah, we're talking total upgrade here. This

is a total different machine than he's ever sat then he's really I mean he may have seen the inside of this because he's A flight attendant, but he does not fly these airplanes

like being a dental hygienist and somebody's like could you do heart surgery, right? Exactly. Yeah, exactly

that that is that is pretty accurate Each airline like we talked about before requires about four to six weeks of school and a whole certification check

In fact multiple checks. He's not certified to fly this particular model But he sees the f -16s and he actually waves at them. I'm

glad he

is he waves at them with

yeah

hands Okay, he's not waving like hi.

He's not like a

Forrest Gump way. He's like waving his hands Only two minutes after sitting down at the controls the left engine flames out due to fuel exhaustion. Oh,

no

Okay, the airplane can no longer hold its altitude. So it starts to descend in holding So

it's spiraling down so it's flying a

racetrack pattern, but it cannot stay where it is So it's just spiraling down. This is what we call drift Now if it has enough fuel if it has enough fuel, it's going to drift down to around 20 ish thousand feet maybe to

exact 34 now

Yeah,

so it's gonna drift down to about 20 ,000 but it's still gonna be in the holding pattern. So he has to do something Yeah, yeah, he has to do something but here's what he sees he sees that the aircraft is in Threat of hitting the city and he knows that's not a good thing So he turns off the autopilot And he turns the aircraft away from the city and into the countryside So he

turns away

from the airport and he goes directly to the countryside. Okay? he has basic flying experience, but he can't fly a 737 but yeah he can control it but

he's never gonna be able to

So the f -16s follow Helios 522 as it runs on its right engine.

What if he aimed for like the water? I

mean that could be a appropriate ditching I'm

not sure. Could he like coast into the water at all? No he's like Potentially. He's going to be able to land this thing in any scenario.

Potentially. But the F -16s follow Helios 522, as again it's running on its right engine, tracking across the Greek countryside away from the city. There's still a tiny chance that Andreas could save it as you pointed out, but then 10 minutes after the left engine flames out, the right engine no okay just after noon that day so they were they took off at 907 it's like 1203 so the airplane has been up it's only supposed to make an hour and a half flight it's

been out for yeah

hours almost three just shy of three

hours yeah she's

right Andreas still at the controls, F -16s still following it. Helios 522 crashes into a hillside near Gramatico which is 25 miles 40 kilometers from Athens, kills 121 passengers in sixth

grade. Oh no, Andreas, you saved the city! It really is part of the Spider -Man franchise, that is double wide.

So what actually happened? You know that unlike many of my episodes, this one is actually pretty straightforward.

Yeah, I feel like we are very aware of what happened here.

The Greek authorities found that the flight crew overlooked the checklist item three times, okay? That resulted in a failure to properly pressurize the aircraft and ultimately caused the crew to become incapacitated due to hypoxia. Okay, that's what the direct cause was. But there's a little bit more to the story. So when I was reading the report, there's a lot of contributing factors. And there's some really interesting ones. First, the authorities looked at the company and they found that the operator had deficiencies in their organization, quality management, and their safety culture. That was documented findings in a several safety audits that they had had. So

it's a systemic issue. It's like everybody's scooting by.

Everybody's doing the, they're going

with the motions. But

this is the problem with capitalism. Especially when it

applies

to airlines is they are going to do the bare minimum because minimum maximizes profit. If they had treated did everything as an organization should, they may not be profitable. They may have to go out of business.

But

in order to stay in business, they cut corners, which means degraded safety culture, which means deficiency in management, et cetera. The big one here is the failure of the maintenance personnel to return the aircraft to a known configuration after maintenance was performed.

We pointed that out earlier.

Absolutely.

Hey, if you put the switch in that position, put it back. Yeah. Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This has touched several hands at this point, but also, like, I'm sorry, it's the first officer and the pilot, I feel like, have the biggest piece to play in this, because it's, yeah, it's your flight at that time. You take over ownership of this plane.

The government also found that Boeing was at fault.

Because of the horn thing? Yep. All right, I mean, I'm not mad about it. again it's like the warning that says this beverage is hot you know when you know you're knowingly exactly exactly but yeah I think that I'm holding if I

had to put percentages I'm gonna say 15 % Boeing there

was there's a number associated but they settled out of court with the victims families and we don't know what the number is but the authorities found that Boeing had an ineffectivity had an ineffective and inadequate response to known previous pressurization incidents in this same type of aircraft. So what they're telling us is something similar to this happened before and Boeing didn't make any changes.

Where they were confused by the alarm. So this means

that the cabin altitude alerting system was flawed providing only that single shared tone and no additional warning lights which I found shocking because I fly the 737 and And there are lights there. Due to this crash, Boeing installed differentiation lights, but the same horn, but two lights.

But two

lights. Yes.

So when the horn goes off, you can look up, and it'll say cabin altitude, or it'll say takeoff configuration.

OK, I mean, I'm not mad about this improvement. I think that most solutions are layered. They're not a singular, so that if there is something that can be done that helps to prevent this in the future, fantastic. Why not take those steps to make that happen? And

Boeing also, and the government also said that Boeing checklists were not good enough to address this type of issue because one of the first things on the checklist now, if those cooling lights are on, is pressurization in auto, where previous to this, the cooling lights, it was gonna be like, oh, we'll turn it to alternate. It was gonna assume that the fans had failed or something else was wrong with the cooling system, where now that cooling checklist.

They're connected.

Yeah, now that cooling checklist is item

one

is the pressurization system on.

If so... Improvements. Right. We're supposed to learn from our mistakes. And

talked about this, right? So 2021, 2022, 2023, safest years in aviation history. These are all incremental steps to get there. But they additionally found that flight attendant training given to all European operators was insufficient. because when the masks dropped, the flight attendants didn't call the pilots.

Yeah, I feel like that's strange. Like, we need to be making contact.

That step alone may have saved the entire flight because that's hard to ignore the flight attendant saying, hey, the masks dropped back here.

Yeah, yeah.

Right? Yeah. You got the pressurization horn going off

and the flight attendant calling you going, the masks dropped.

Is there any level of intimidation in between the flight attendants and the pilots? Like, would they at all be like, I don't wanna bother them with this trivial

mask? I can't address that culture from 2005. I can't, and especially with a charter operator, I think that that is probably one of the insufficient cultural norms that they had at the company, was maybe the flight attendants didn't talk to the pilots or weren't supposed to or whatever. yeah there's also a sterile cockpit light it's basically a blue light that tells the flight attendants when the pilots are in sterile which turns on below 10 ,000 feet so that the flight attendants don't make non -appropriate calls to them

what does that mean in sterile like it's don't

so it's a critical phase of flight below 10 ,000 feet so the flight attendants not gonna call us and go hey you know that it's a little cool here in the back yeah or

Maybe it's can you warm it up back here a little bit or make can you call maintenance when we get on the ground? Because somebody puked in you know road.

Yeah, but oxygen masks feels like something that's critical. Yeah, okay We

don't know if the sterile cockpit light was on or off So we're

not sure even if it was on but even if it was on they still could have

called that was a finding The flight attendants should have called so the Cyprus government grounded all all the 737s operated by Helios the day after this accident. But on August 29th, 2005, Helios announced successful safety checks on their Boeing fleet, they put them all back in service. Then Helios changed its name to AJET. My

goodness.

But a year later, and due to criminal and civil suits, criminal prosecution on the part of some people, the authorities in Cyprus detained the company's aircraft, they froze all their assets and their bank accounts, the airline announced it would stop operating on October 31st of 2006.

So a year later, they were out. They

were out. The crash victims' families filed several class action lawsuits, and like I said, they settled with Boeing out of court, so we don't know what Boeing paid them. They also sued Helios, but there were no assets left,

so

essentially there's a pending award, but there's no money to satisfy the award. They also sued the government of Cyprus for poor oversight. That case is still pending today.

Oh my goodness.

It's coming up on a 20 year anniversary soon. So now what, do we know what the grounds were? Like at what point would Cyprus be accountable? No

idea. No idea. It just seems crazy that it's just still pending.

Yeah.

20 years later.

20 years. I mean, I'm just, I'm wondering what is the force

behind that argument that they want to continue it for 20 years. Right,

right. So the burning question is always, could this happen today?

Yeah, I mean it's human error. It could happen today.

I would think that it could happen today, but only with extreme negligence on the part of the crew. Now, I say that, but that's what happened.

I like, yeah, it was extreme negligence from the beginning. It

was. It was negligence on the part of maintenance. It

was

negligence on the part of the crew missing the checklist item three times and then when they were directed to turn the system to auto, captain ignored it. Probably hypoxia but still a serious

issue. But error on so many ways. That's a pilot, a first officer, and four flight attendants that made no contributing factors to the demise of the flight when it was within their power the whole time. So I just I know it could happen again for that reason.

So the other reason it could happen is the system is the same. Like we talked about Boeing's 737.

Yeah. It's

the same system. They added light, but the system is the same.

Right.

So there's not really anything to keep

somebody from putting that in. But fault. I mean. I

know, I struggle with that too.

It's never not, as long as we have pilots, you have the influence of human error. And not just a pilot, like anybody in that position to put the aircraft in the position it is to be held without cabin pressure I mean you

really do and the problem is if you say now that that's Boeing's fault and then a pilot maybe turns off the autothrottle system and pulls the levers to idle is that now Boeing's fault that the airplane crashes because they didn't put power in like where does it where does

right where's the line where's

the line where's that where is that slippery slope stop right oh this system has to be auto and now this system has to be auto and now if this one doesn't you know there's a there's a line at which

this plane is not a spring chicken has a very spotty maintenance check is Boeing still accountable when we've sold you the plane you are operating the plane you are in charge of its maintenance it's not a lifetime warranty no it's not a lifetime warranty and it's not it's not like they sold you a lemon and this all just started to appear and

there's also bigger training questions. Like Boeing made the plane but then all the pilots were checked out on that aircraft. They were certified. They were certified by their independent government agencies, by their company agencies. Everybody passed the checks to be on that plane. So at what point do you go, okay we built an airplane with a flaw but you passed the check with the flaw. You knew. You got educated on the system. You knew what the horn

meant. But if it's known it's not a flaw right

yeah okay yeah

it's not like they were like uh it gets stuck in auto but really it's in manual no you didn't toggle the switch which was your

responsibility the correct

and the horn went off exactly as it should yeah I agree I mean but Boeing fixed the problem and then they released a new checklist and they made which

I'm happy for I am I'm just not gonna say that at the end of the day it was Boeing's responsibility I do believe there were things within their power they could do to make it better.

I hate that people had to die though.

Absolutely. I

mean, that would be the scariest thing to be a passenger and be like, the oxygen mask came down 10 minutes ago. We're still climbing. Nobody

said anything. But that. I wouldn't have known that. As us as passengers, we don't know that those oxygen masks only have 12 minutes in them.

I assume the flow of oxygen is for as long as I need it. So if we're continuing to climb you're telling me we're good. I'm not thinking anything different. We're little Children back there. We're relying on the adult to get us where we need to be It's true

and you would think that the smartest person in the room would be the flight attendant at that point because the pilots Are not they're separate physically separated.

Absolutely

And and what do the flight attendants do? They don't they didn't call the flight deck and say hey, we have an issue They didn't

even know about these reserve oxygen masks either. So three people were also dead knowing full Well, quote on there's a quotes knowing full. Well, there were alternative sources of oxygen

You

asked about the girlfriend and boyfriend.

Yeah Yeah

So there was an article right after this happened that said that the girlfriend and boyfriend entered the cockpit

Interesting. There was like a little evidence of that

well they went and asked the f -16 pilots and the f -16 pilots said that no that's absolutely not true so there was like this quick flash in the pan of oh these two people were there but she

was never there

but she was never there

yeah

she was never in the cockpit so

dress was waving he was making his presence no I

think what happened is Andreas got his therapeutic oxygen bottle he found the key to the cockpit yeah he went in he dragged the captain out of the seat and And that's when the F -16 comes.

Really? Because didn't the F -16 saw the pilot slumped and then saw nobody in the captain's seat. Correct. So they would have seen Andreas in that time that he was there.

I guess they would have. And they could also see because the shades were up. Yeah. They could also see into portions at least of the cabin. So it does raise a question of where did the captain go? And where was Andreas the whole time?

Yeah, yeah. I think your first assessment of he was out and then came to and secured and maybe came back. I don't know what it's like to have oxygen sickness in any way and just come back. So

when they did the investigation on the human portion, basically they did autopsies on the human portion, all of the passengers were alive when the aircraft crashed.

You're

kidding

me.

They were asleep. They were alive, but they were asleep.

oh this is a whole new level here okay so yeah of course Andreas made it out of course he got his oxygen because he knew where it was if everybody else is alive and just unconscious they're unconscious everybody's unconscious wait also like how did they crash at such a low impact where there were bodies to autopsy I'm assuming disintegration so

so the aircraft was moving more slowly because it only had one engine operating it

was

moving at a certain it was it was gliding and it wasn't so it wasn't pointing down

yeah

and it had no fuel so no no post -impact fire and

that's

how we have an idea that the people were alive

got it oh my gosh there's just something I can't the whole thing is creepy but this idea of you know asleep so

they call this so they call this a ghost mine so it happens it has happened to one other or time that I know of, and I'll look up, I'll cover that incident another time, but they call that a ghost plane.

Wow, that's so people are unconscious

or dead,

and the airplane is still flying because it doesn't require its pilots, it's programmed. Right. Heartbreaking.

Heartbreaking, but Andreas, my guy. I know. He just like, you know, in the franchise, he's like the Iron Man, just taking that thing out and getting it out of everybody's way, and going down with it. Exactly, he went down with it. How smart. toward

Athens, we're gonna point away.

That's insane. I can't imagine being in that scenario and this idea of you're basically brain dead and then you come back and you just have enough awareness to be like, whatever this is isn't good, let's get out of the way.

Right, what would have been extremely traumatic is if one of those F -16 pilots had to shoot down

a jetliner. Oh, there's nothing happy about this story. It's all creepy and unsettling, but yeah, the fact that it literally it really have been so much worse and traumatizing.

It could have been more traumatizing. Not that it isn't traumatizing, but yes. It's just a very interesting story in general. Yes. Miss a small thing and everybody was alive. Had Andreas even flipped that switch?

Imagine. Nah, there's no world he would have, but still. No. Oh man.

So that's the whole incident. Like I

said, it wasn't too long. It's a visual that lives with you now.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So my main source was the Hellenic Republic Ministry of Transport and Communications Air Accident Investigation and Aviation Safety Board Official Accident Investigation Report.

Okay. Oh, that was a lot. I'm glad you read that and I didn't.

The Greeks made a report. That's

it. That's the whole thing.

I read the report. It's basically like the NTSB report that the

US does.

I read a New York Times article. I read an article from the medium. I read the Greek Herald, I read the Cyprus Mail, I read the Guardian, and I used Wikipedia to find those sources.

Wow, you did your research. Yeah.

You got any more questions?

I mean, honestly, I could find some, but I'm just gonna let it marinate.

Yeah. So anyway, we'll catch you next time. So thanks for being on. Thanks

for having me. I

appreciate it again. And this will be out in a couple days.

See you in three years. Bye bye. Bye.