That makes it more mysterious. The pilots never knew there was a pressurization problem so they would not have used their masks. In the documentary he was shown entering the cockpit and putting the mask on the copilot but to no avail. That was just a guess. Maybe they had found the p2 mask unstowed? He was last seen using the Captain's headset but he was allegedly transmitting on Larnaca approach/departures. I apologise to anyone reading this that has not seen the documentary as you are probably wondering what I am talking about. The fact that he was more qualified as a pilot than I thought just deepens the mystery. Perhaps there was something in the report that was not mentioned in the documentary.:confused:

I believe the Helios documentary is being repeated today 15th Sept at 1300 (1pm). National Geographic Channel- Air crash investigation Ghost Plane.

Oh come on... just because someone has a shiny new fATPL licence and absolutely no experience of heavy jet operation doesn't mean that they'd know how to make radio selections on a B737 if they've never been shown how. Yes, we know that all the flight sim specialists on here could do it blindfolded :rolleyes: were they in that position but let's get real.

Has it been confirmed that he had actually finished his training and was job searching? Or was it just poetic licence by some writers who thought the fact that there was a wannabe pilot who supposedly remained concious and then struggled with the controls as the engines flamed out and the autopilot dropped out?

This wasn't Hollywood. The portrayal of events on the flight deck in the TV documentary were speculative for the most part. If this guy was conscious for the duration, based on speculation that he was the only one that used the portable oxygen cylinders, then the question has to be asked, considering he was an employee supposedly trained in SEP's, what was he doing for all that time?

I only saw the Discovery documentary on this, and not the NG one yet, but I studied the accident report, and there are a couple of things that need to be pointed out.

Airsnoop needs to know that the report quotes a CAA inspector saying, not verbatim, but this is the sense of it, IIRC, “I should be writing you up for a level one violation but I will make it level two to give you more time to comply”. That is, in many countries, criminal negligence, or misfeasance, i.e. knowingly not doing your job properly, and the letter is an admission of misfeasance. They are paid to inspect, report, etc. and if they find a level one violation, then level one violation it must be. If you find it and then admit you are going to ignore it, you have just signed an admission that you are not doing your job. If I were a prosecutor I’d call it a slam dunk.

And how coincidental that all the audit issues were “solved” just before Helios got its AOC, and many of them re-appeared just after. Just look at what the report says about ATC Lasham. They could never get any up to date documentation from Helios, kept asking, but in the end gave up! (Not professional of Helios, but not much more so of ATC Lasham).

The investigators probably didn’t interview the CAA inspector because they had all the correspondence in front of them.

YES BUT - this happened in 2004 to a startup airline which was basically put on warning to get their finger out. The deficiencies were cleared in the timescale given.
What is important is whether a link was established between this "latent condition" in 2004 and the accident.
I can't see any link defined clearly in the Report, can you?
At the time of the accident the airline was fully compliant with JAROPS and as the Report says:

-The flight crew was licensed and qualified for the flight in accordance with applicable regulations;
-The flight crew held valid medical certificates and was medically fit to operate the flight;
-The flight crew was adequately rested and their flight and duty times were in compliance with Cyprus DCA and Operator requirements.

-The cabin crew members were trained and qualified in accordance with existing regulations;
-The cabin crew members were adequately rested and their duty times were in accordance with existing regulations.

-The aircraft held a valid Certificate of Airworthiness;
-The mass and centre of gravity of the aircraft were within prescribed limits;
-The aircraft had been supplied with the required amount of fuel. Fuel was not a factor in this accident;
-No deferred maintenance defects had been recorded.

Looks pretty good to me.

airsnoop wise up for christs sake!

Helios should have been blacklisted and would have been blacklisted had politics not intervened. Politics and safety do not mix.

Unfortunately the world allows itself to be distracted by so called open and free forums that in the most part relay half truths or twisted facts or even complete nonsense dressed up as fact.

Could Helios have been prevented?
We will probably never know. However all indications are that it could have been had Cyprus had an effective authority in place. It didn't and still hasn't.

Helios was no different from its successor Ajet, there were no changes at all in the setup except that the politics had swung in the opposite direction due to the tragedy and the amount of information that was becoming ever more public.

Therefore Ajet lost its AOC just as should have happened to Helios before the accident.

airsnoop said
YES BUT - this happened in 2004 to a startup airline which was basically put on warning to get their finger out. The deficiencies were cleared in the timescale given.

I think you will find it happened in Aug 2005.:ugh:

It did happen again. Probs all cleared up just in time for the issuing on the AOC -- pretty suspicious they got them sorted so quick -- and then re-appeared almost immediately afterwards.

The report spoke of rosters deliberately violating FTLs, a "climate of fear", safety posts either doubled up or vacant, total refusal to provide documentation to maintenance contractor, etc. etc. If anyone is in doubt just dip into the report anywhere you like. It's not like you have to read between the lines.

"Legal" does not equal "safe".