How does a wet cloth really help (scientifically) to survive an airplane crash?

"trader_4" wrote in message
news:df3d9f0d-cc7f-4640-a592- On Monday, May 19, 2014 7:17:35 AM UTC-4,
Robert Green wrote:
This thread has helped explain why I believe the missing Malaysia flight
might have suffered a cabin fire (that model plane had a known oxygen
supply
hose defect that caused a very serious fire on the ground in another
plane).

Again, that defect that occured in one other case, resulted in a
cockpit fire at the pilots seat, while the airplane was on the ground.
Let's say the same thing happened in MH370. How does that explain the
airplane flying for about an hour more under radar contact, making
precise turns, lining up with mormal flight paths toward India, and
then later, making at least one more course change that took it to
Australia? How does it miraculously result in the the transponder
and ACARS being lost. And all this just happened to occur in the
couple of minutes between being handed off by Malaysian ATC to Vietnam
ATC, ie the ideal small, ideal window for deliberate human action?

There's no explanation of events that can be proven or disproved until the
wreckage is found. The pandemonium that can occur with a cabin fire can
explain a lot of things that appear to be inexplicable. Reading about how
fast cabin fires spread and how lethal they can be still makes me suspect a
cabin fire because a pilot crashing a plane deliberately and silently
doesn't make sense. He would *want* to get credit for his actions. Your
small, ideal window could be total coincidence. There's just no way to know
from the few facts that are available.

If it was a cabin fire, there should be still some evidence recoverable to
support that theory. If the FDR and voice recorder unit are found, it may
prove your theory - or it may leave us with more clues but no firm answer
because the voice recorder overwrites old data every two hours and the plane
allegedly crashed 7 hours after takeoff. Critical voice information is most
likely gone unless the CVR lost power early on in the flight.

The most difficult part of the suicide scenario is that even Shakespeare's
often long-winded dramatic characters got it over relatively quickly.
People who survived jumping off the Golden Gate bridge change their minds
half way down. Search for the 2003 New Yorker article about Golden Gate
Bridge suicide jumpers. It's very enlightening.

I just don't know of a single case where a guy took 7 hours to kill himself.
It's an impulsive act that people want to get over with quickly. He left no
note, no radio contact, no reasons given. That's pretty unusual for a
suicide, especially one who appears as troubled as he's been made out to be.
And his demonization by the press and the Malaysian government also bothers
me. It's classic scapegoating. There are dozens of scenarios at this stage,
but allow me to prefer those that don't point a finger at the crew or the
pilot.

Pilot suicide just doesn't make a lot of sense to me whereas a cabin fire in
a plane KNOWN to have a serious oxygen hose defect seems far more likely.
There's no record or mention I can find of the oxygen hose problem being
corrected and I doubt Malaysia has a fully-functioning FAA equivalent to
enforce maintenance fixes. I am also always totally suspicious of airlines
and governments being quick to blame the pilots. It's an industry tradition
used to focus attention away from any possible gross negligence on their
part.

So then explain how the plane continued to make the many reported
course and altitute changes. Including ones an hour and beyone the
alleged fire.... It just doesn't fit.

"Reported course changes" really bothers me. If they had such detail course
information, why where they searching, without luck, huge swaths of ocean?
That model plane has not one but several automated systems that can fly the
plane and are dedicated to keeping it airborne. There's no main computer to
fail, like some "Star Trek" scenario. There are lots of independent systems
connected through data buses.

Considering how badly my PC acted up when the space heater accidentally
started blowing on it I have no problem believing a fire damaged autopilot
could do a lot of things that looked like a human was at the controls.
Since autopilots are capable of executing almost every command a pilot could
issue, changes in course don't prove there was a person issuing them.

If the cabin's filled with cyanide gas, death for everyone would occur
in
very short order.

That's not true. There are portable oxygen tanks for the crew to use.

You're forgetting that it was precisely those tanks and their fittings that
caused the disastrous oxygen-fed fire on a different plane of the same
model. A fire that would not have been survivable had it occurred aloft. A
fire that turned the cabin's electrical gear into a mass of fused plastic
and wire.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/...70_634x478.jpg

Also the passengers have oxygen for long enough to bring the plane
down to 10,000.

Can *they* fly the plane if the pilots burned to death in a flash cabin
fire? Maybe one of them was poking around with the charred autopilot after
the flames were extinguished and those actions caused the alleged course
changes. We may never know. One thing's for certain: without the wreckage
there's never likely to be conclusive proof about what happened to that
airplane, so we're just spinning our wheels.

Just like you can't testify to the operation of someone's mind in court, you
can't determine if the pilot was suicidal or homicidal by counting the
number of course changes a plane *allegedly* made after radio contact was
lost. If there was a fire, the pilots would have tried to deactivate
cockpit components by pulling the electrical busses. That *easily* explains
why cockpit based systems failed first and other, more remote systems
continued to function. If it was the pilot's emergency oxygen supply that
caused the fire, then their chances for prolonged survival amidst toxic
fumes are very poor.

Without the data and voice recorders or forensic evidence from the wreckage,
it's all supposition. I base mine on a previous very serious oxygen fed
cabin fire in an identical model and on Payne Stewart's flight to nowhere
with a plane full of dead passengers. Yes, that plane flew in a straight
line after all the passengers and pilot died from a pressurization
malfunction, but the 777 has a far more sophisticated autopilot.

If the Apollo oxygen-fed (aka a "blowtorch") fire killed everyone in the
capsule in 17 seconds, a fire like that doesn't leave much time to call the
ATC tower and tell them about an event they couldn't do anything about
anyway from 100's of miles away. The pilot's primary duty at that point is
to keep the plane flying, not to alert ATC. Pilots have a mantra for
setting priorities in an emergency: aviate, navigate, communicate.

The worst part is that they may never find the wreck. It took two YEARS to
find the AirFrance wreck and they basically knew where it went down. But if
they do find MH370, we may see which one of us is the better guesser,
because that's all we can do. Guess. There just isn't enough information
available to reach any valid conclusions other than the plane is lost.

--
Bobby G.