On Monday, March 10, 2014 11:51:20 PM UTC-4, Home Guy wrote:
There was a suprising number of planes in the air around Malaysia at 1

am local time.



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A pilot flying another plane who tried to contact the pilots in the

cockpit of the Malaysia Airlines plane said he heard mumbled voices

before contact was lost.

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So another theory: Something went wrong with the cabin air inside the

plane. Either it lost pressurization (slowly) or recirculation wasn't

working - causing buidup of carbon monoxide.



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On October 25, 1999, a chartered Learjet 35 was scheduled to fly from

Orlando, Florida to Dallas, Texas. Early in the flight the aircraft,

which was cruising at altitude on autopilot, quickly lost cabin

pressure. All on board were incapacitated due to hypoxia — a lack of

oxygen. The aircraft failed to make the westward turn toward Dallas over

north Florida. It continued flying over the southern and midwestern

United States for almost four hours and 1,500 miles (2,400 km). The

plane ran out of fuel and crashed into a field near Aberdeen, South

Dakota after an uncontrolled descent. The four passengers on board were

golf star Payne Stewart, his agents, Van Ardan and Robert Fraley, and

Bruce Borland, a highly regarded golf architect with the Jack Nicklaus

golf course design company.



The NTSB determined that:



The probable cause of this accident was incapacitation of the

flight crew members as a result of their failure to receive

supplemental oxygen following a loss of cabin pressurization,

for undetermined reasons.



A possible explanation for the failure of the pilots to receive

emergency oxygen is that their ability to think and act decisively was

impaired because of hypoxia before they could don their oxygen masks. No

definitive evidence exists that indicates the rate at which the accident

flight lost its cabin pressure; therefore, the Safety Board evaluated

conditions of both rapid and gradual depressurization.



If there had been a breach in the fuselage (even a small one that could

not be visually detected by the in-flight observers) or a seal failure,

the cabin could have depressurized gradually, rapidly, or even

explosively. Research has shown that a period of as little as 8 seconds

without supplemental oxygen following rapid depressurization to about

30,000 feet (9,100 m) may cause a drop in oxygen saturation that can

significantly impair cognitive functioning and increase the amount of

time required to complete complex tasks.

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So either MH370 depressurized quickly - or slowly.



The pilots might have been able to put their masks on - or realize they

needed to put their masks on.



Perhaps they did - but their supplemental oxygen supply didn't work.



Perhaps in their confused state, with or without functional masks, they

started an emergency descent before they blacked out, causing the plane

to smash into the ocean with the pilots incapacitated on the way down.



Note also that in the flight of the Lear Jet in 1999 that the pilots,

even if they did don their masks, made no attempt at radio contact.



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2005 Helios Airways Flight 522 crash



On August 14, 2005, a Helios Airways Boeing 737-300 crashed 40 km (25

mi) from Athens after running out of fuel. An investigation later

concluded that an improper pressurization setting in the cockpit had

caused the cabin pressure to drop, and resulted in the incapacitation of

the passengers and crew. It was later determined that one of the flight

attendants had used the bottled oxygen supply and his pilot's training

to attempt to bring the plane down to a lower altitude. There were no

survivors.

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I think this is looking more and more likely - that the pilots suffered

a slow asphyxia or hypoxia, caused either by a fault in the airframe or

the misapplication or failure of some valve or switch. The plane

descended rapidly, either as the last semi-conscious act of the pilot(s)

or because of a complete lack of pilot input to the controls.



This would be expected during the early phase of the flight, as it

climbs to cruise altitude.

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