Is it plausable ??????

This might be one for the conspiracy theorists, but I was talking to Conn Buckey (fellow SAC member) regarding the persied meteor shower when he asked what kind of damage would a small meteroite strike do, to say a car etc,

He then asked could it be possible that a small meteroite have caused the plane crash in Greece ???
The plane seems to have suffered rapid decompression at very high altitude, and given that the persieds were only a few days before..

Is this totally off the wall, what do you think ????

I'm not too sure. These are only my thoughts on it but this aircraft reportedly had a related problem (air-con) which was repaired only hours before take-off.

Two Lockheed Martin F16 fighters jets were launched for intercept/recon to find out what was going on - If there was any breach of the outer structure these 2 jets would have seen it as they were in proximity of the Helios 737-300 for about 45 minutes. They got close enough to see passengers, Oxygen masks and the co-pilot clumped over the controls.

My feeling is that the aircrafts air-con / air-recycling system totally failed (rendering the oxyden system useless) and also letting in air from the outside (which is usually on a recycle). The pilot reported a problem at 14,000ft and stayed there for a period of time before climbing to the aircrafts Flight level of 34,000.

However, the captain was not on the flight deck and may have gone to investigate a breach of some sort ... in which case this theory could be considered. However, if it was a meteor, I would think that some debris would have been expelled during initial impact and if it was a big enough impact the jet, travelling around 450kts, would have had a very-much altered airframe , thus altering the aerodynamics of the aircraft. If there was a large hole in the aircraft, flying at high speed would have put stresses on the aircraft which could have resulted in a mid-air disintegration.

I believe the black box flight recorders will hold key information both in the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder which would measure over 700 flight parameters including pressure measurements.

Lets see what they find out on those - perhaps this unusual theory might be re-visited later!

There are also reports that a student pilot was at the controls at the time of the crash and that the crash it self was due to a flame-out / stall during a banking manouvre to line-up to Athens approach. This has not been verified but there is a lot about this crash which has still to be confirmed. Disasterous loss of cabin pressure is not usually something which will result in a crash.

Sorry for the ramblings but these are my thoughts on the incident.

no need to apologise for ramblings Shane, ramblings are good
You've pretty well nailed that idea, but I just thought I'd throw it out there anyway.

I know meteors burn up very high in the atmosphere, so the question becomes, do they burn up below or above the hight planes fly?

Mind you I still think that had there been a strike that there would have been some visible damage on the outside for the F16 pilots to report.

Well meteors come in all shapes and sizes - if it was something the size of a stone, travelling at that speed (of a stellar object) and the combined speed of the aircraft - it could have penetrated the aluminium body.
The F-16s are reported to have got to within metres of the aircraft which was travelling on auto-pilot for the majority - but they would not have been looking specifically for smaller items of damage on the aircraft. Their main priority was the threat of a hijacking.

I wouldn't discount the meteor suggestion outright - but the existing problems with flight 522 leads me to believe it was a technical fault with the aircraft. In fact a former chief mechanic for Helios, said that the Boeing 737-300 which crashed, had lost cabin pressure during a flight to Warsaw last December, after a door was apparently not sealed properly.


It was a sad event which could have been prevented ... unless it was a meteor.

But if something big enough to puncture a presurised airplane hit it the damage would not be small! The metal would be twisted outwards in an inverse crater and damage like that would be blindingly obvious.

Remember, a plane is highly pressurised so it would be like trying ot punch a hole in a can of Lynx, there is only one type of hole you can get, a big one!