The attempt by Helios to rebrand at such a sensitive time is surprising and miscalculated.Assuming no major surprises in the final report,the crash aircraft was by all accounts fully serviceable.In the immediate aftermath,there was a lot of media frenzy about shoddy maintenance and disgruntled and cold passengers.I think this has been proven a red herring.The crew seemingly crashed a perfectly serviceable aircraft.By all accounts,the engineer left the pressurization mode switch in MAN because the checklist instructed him to do so.He can NOT be held accountable.The investigation has uncovered sporadic and unsatisfactory vigilance of airline operations by the Cypriot CAA but can this failing be directly connected to the probable cause?Its a major failing for sure,but unrelated to probable cause.
A lawsuit has been filed against Boeing and it will be interesting to see if they can make it stick.I have serious doubts.Boeing's reminder to pilots that an intermittent horn whilst airborne can only mean excessive cabin altitude is not an admission of design ambiguity,but rather a reminder of the obvious.The checklist design issue is not quite so transparent;omission of specific challenge and response items relating to the configuration of the pressurization panel is problematic,but must be balanced by the fact that there was one checklist item that encompassed the configuration of the airconditioning and pressurization panel as a whole.Boeing's decision to now include the setting of the pressurization mode selection as a specific and separate checklist item might possibly be construed/mis-construed as proof of a voltaface.And the same might be said of the changes made to the AFTER TAKEOFF checklist.However,a manufacturer must be able to refine and finetune system and checklist design without having that revision used against them in a court of law.
The 737 was designed and certified in the 1960's;Boeing's later models are EICAS-equipped and warn the pilot of cabin altitude in excess of 10000 feet by displaying an EICAS message "CABIN ALTITUDE" accompanied by a intermittent siren.Cancelling the master warning/caution cancels the siren.Additionally,at 11000 feet,the cabin altitude controllers are bypassed and the outflow valve is closed automatically.It is a superior and safer design but does this make the 737 design unsafe?