Originally Posted by
Mojo31
That's what happened to Payne Stewart's plane years ago. But, the plane kept flying until it depleted its fuel due to being on auto-pilot. Wouldn't the 737 be on auto-pilot after takeoff, at least, until close to landing? If so, it seems it would have continued to fly off its fuel.
If you think about it, cabin decompression might be the best thing because then all the souls would go unconscious and would not experience the terror of the descent, wouldn't it?
typically when something goes wrong the autopilot is clicked off. Aircraft control is the most important thing, and when the alarms first sound you won’t know what the problem could be. They should have gotten a master warning light. Red light flashing at eye level as well as master caution. This would alert both pilots to then look up at the pressure control panel above the FOs head. Rapid decompression the very next thing is to put the mask on. If there was a delay or the problem was diagnosed wrong then yea they would have passed out and slumped on the controls.
The mask automatically drop in the back, so for the passengers that put the mask on then they would be awake for the ride. Again just speculating. I’m sure the news will have all kinds of “experts” with even more ideas than me.
I mention this one, because from what I am reading the pilots were not communicating at all. In any emergency situation you always Aviate (fly the airplane) Navigate then communicate. It might have been the problem was so great they didn’t have time to communicate.
Hope I am never in that situation.