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From someone familiar with instrumentation from his university research experience and also familiar with ground Central AC systems from his experience in the design and installation of such systems in the Middle East.

Helios Flight ZU522 disaster

In order to get the facts straight, the crucial points to notice are the following:

  1. During the first communication of the captain with the ground engineer, (between 09.12 and 09.14+), the plane was between 10.000 and 14.000 ft. So, when the alarm went off at 09.15 the captain was not suffering from hypoxemia.
  2. The ascent was continued after the alarm, against the rules of standard procedure.Why? The captain thought that he hadcorrected the problem. This was the fatal error that caused the crash and not any possible or probable decompression.
  3. 12 minutes later, the co-pilot had already passed out and the captain was suffering from severe hypoxemia, whilst 2 whole hours later the steward and his companion were walking about in the cockpit. It is evident that the pilotsdid not use their oxygen masks. Why? Again, they thought that they hadcorrected the problem.
  4. Why did they think that they hadcorrected the problem? The captain had the impression that he had corrected the problem by turning the system manually ON (!)
  5. Evidently, the captain had turned the ventilation system manually OFF.This is what caused the alarm to go off and the oxygen masks of the passengers to drop, at precisely this moment (09.15), according to the black box examined in France.

Verified facts of the Helios flight ZU522:

Verified facts are in black print. Other colours are comments, opinions and inferences.

Sequence of events:

Before Flight ZU522

  1. The particular plane had ventilation problems on the previous night’s inbound flight. (Comment from experts: Ventilation problems are not a rare occurrence).
  2. Ground engineers serviced the system and OKed it before Flight ZU522.

Flight ZU522

  1. 09.07 Helios Flight ZU522 takes off from Larnaca airport.
  2. 09.12 Captain starts communication with ground Engineer (GE) to report “possible air conditioning problem with plane’s avionics”. He suspects so because the indicator light of the system is ON. (There may have been a malfunction with the avionics cooling system or this was the default setting of the indicator lamp). He asks for the location of the manual switch of the plane’s air-conditioning and he is told, “it is high up behind the captain’s seat”. [This manual switch is not on the control panel but out of reach of the seated pilots because they are not supposed to touch it during flight. It is a seriesbreaker switch that cuts the systemoff when the system is not in operation. It is not a mode selection switch. A/C systems do not have a manual/auto selection switch. Such a switch, (if there could be one),turned to ‘manual’ would shunt the automatic control circuit, which is thermostat controlled and, in the case of an airplane, also pressure controlled, and the system would run ceaselessly uncontrolled. When the captain asked for its location, the GE should have been immediately alarmed and warn him not to touch it, instead of answering his question casually. The only way the captain could change its position was to turn it OFF.It is evident from what followed that this is exactly what he did.The GE knows this. He left Cyprus for good immediately after the accident. He left in order to avoid the angry and vengeful relatives that could blame him for it.]
  3. 09.14+ Communication ends.
  4. During this communication, the plane is between 10.000 and 14.000 ft. The captain is not suffering from hypoxemia. He sounds perfectly all right.
  5. Seconds later, at 09.15, the alarm goes off and Oxygen masks dropwith the aeroplaneat 14000 ft. (Black box recording).
  6. Plane continues to ascend.This is the fatal error that caused the crash.
  7. Why did the captain not follow standard procedure to descend to 10.000 ft and return to the airport? The only possible explanation is that he thought that he had corrected the problemby switching the system manually ON (!!!). However, he switched the whole systemOFF instead, making the problem terminally worse or causing a problem where there was none. This is exactly when the alarm went off and the Oxygen masks dropped.
  8. 09.24 Plane reaches cruising altitude of 34.000 ft.
  9. 09.27 Captain communicates with GE again. He sounds unintelligible, most probably due to hypoxemia. GE asks him to put the Cypriot co-pilot on line. Communication is terminated.
  10. 09.37 Plane enters Greek airspace.
  11. 10.07 Air Traffic Control is unable to communicate with aircraft.
  12. 10.30 Greek ATC issues “Renegade alert”.
  13. 10.55 Two F16 fighter aircraft scramble.
  14. 11.20 F16s intercept aircraft (almost 2 hours after plane reaches 34.000 ft).
  15. Observation 1: Plane’s windows clear, not iced.
  16. Observation 2: Masks dangling in front of sitting (not slumped) passengers. (Most probably there was no decompression of the cabin at this time. The captain had corrected his mistake and restarted the system before he passed out. The passengers were alive and breathing normally).
  17. Observation 3: Captain is not in his seat.
  18. Observation 4: Co-pilot is slumped on controls.
  19. Observation 5: Two other people, not wearing breathing devices, are moving in the cockpit trying to control the plane.
  20. Observation 6: One of these two people waves to the F16 pilots.
  21. (By 09.27, 12 minutes after the alarm, the captain and the co-pilot suffered severehypoxemia, with the co-pilot collapsing first, whilst 2 whole hours later the steward and his companion were walking about in the cockpit.Any portable Oxygen cylinders could not last more than 30 min. It is evident that the pilots did not use their Oxygen masks, another indication that they thought they hadcorrected the problem.)
  22. 12.05 Airplane crashes at Grammatikos (45 minutesafter the F16 interception). This means that the cockpit door was open at least45 minutes before the crash and not after the engines ran out of fuel. Probably the steward used the code to open the door or the captain managed to open it, after he corrected his mistake with the manual switch and restarted the ventilation system, before he passed out. This is why the captain was not in his seat.
  23. Total duration of flight almost 3 hours.
  24. A small fire breaks out.
  25. One young boy is seen alive and moving by first local visitors to the crash scene.
  26. A second bigger fire breaks out.
  27. Six (6) corpses from various locations of the crash were autopsied. All had soot in their bronchi from the fire that followed the crash. (According to the doctors, this random sample was enough to infer the condition of most of the victims, if not ALL).
  28. Most passengers were alive and breathing after the crash,even if unconscious. Some of them, like the young boy, may have been conscious.

I have hence listened to many analysts and commentators of the crash, all bewildered by the many fatal coincidencesagainst standard procedures. They say that, not only it is odd that the captain did not follow standard procedure and continued the ascent but it is also odd that the steward, seeing the aeroplane still ascending after the oxygen masks dropped, did not inform the captain about the dropping of the oxygen masks, again against standard procedure. The steward did inform the captain. Yet the plain continued its ascent. Why?The captain assured the steward that he had corrected the problem.

What is really ODD is that a captain with so many years of experience would make such a stupid blunder concerning the so-called manual switch. (I know the answer to this but you would not believe me if I told you. You need to understand ‘remote viewing’ for this.)

Choosing to ignore some of the facts, encouraged by Tsolakis’ biased report, the relatives are raging with fury and hatred against what they call the ‘cold blooded murderers’, demanding from both God and mundane Authorities revenge-justice for their misfortune on the ‘criminals’ that caused it.

Consequently, they also fill the hearts of small children relatives with hatred against the ‘cold blooded murderers’ that deprived them of their loved ones. These children will never be normal again. God knows what adverse effects this hatred will have on their whole life and their social behaviour.

The protagonist in this collateral tragedy is Akrivos Tsolakis, who, moved by inflated ego and emotionalism, took it upon himself to act as a ‘compassionate little god’ for the relatives of the victims and biased his report accordingly. His main divineconcern was to damp down the relatives’ grief by assuring them that their loved ones did not suffer excessively but died peacefully as if in their sleep, long before the crash. Further, by blaming the Helios Company for the accident, the relatives would stand to benefit more in compensation money, for which they would be grateful to him.

The crash was an ACCIDENT, caused by human error on behalf of the captain (and partly on behalf of the GE). Ventilation problems occur every day in Civil Aviation but they do not end up in crashes. There is a standard procedure to handle these situations safely.

I am not related in any way to any of the Helios Company but knew a couple of the victims quite well.

Jesus D Zeus

PS: A crime was also committed by the Greek Airforce. They should have talked the aircraft down at a military airstrip after they intercepted it at 11.20, instead of letting it crash. They let it crash because they thought it was a highjacked renegade.