Report: Missing Airplane Flew On For Hours

[ColesCountyDem]

57. I was thinking they were at FL 360 or 365, but we essentially agree.

Stewart's plane suffered catastrophic decompression at some point as it was ascending to FL 390 from FL 230, but before reaching it. I was using Stewart's flight for purposes of illustration, primarily because both it and the Malaysian 777 had 2 man crews and were at similar altitudes ( again, if I recall correctly, after 14 or 15 years ).

So many folks here are understandably mystified and posting a lot of 'the FAA says' or 'Mr. X, on CNN says' type stuff in an attempt to make sense of this mystery, and I get that and in no way mean to sound critical or condescending toward them. What I think is happening, however, is that they hear '15 seconds before losing consciousness' without understanding that that is the absolute 'upper end' of the time limit, whereas a diminished level of consciousness can begin almost immediately, and a greatly diminished level of consciousness can occur in a VERY few more seconds later. I chose 5-8 seconds a a 'happy medium', so to speak.

Your point about the flight crew's prior behavior is well taken. If you've been told to ascend to FL 350 and maintain, as this crew had been, it's not unreasonable to assume that the crew may well have (and likely would have) engaged the auto-pilot and been IN the cockpit, but not necessarily in their seats and ready to instantly respond to the emergency. As I'm thinking you most likely understand, during a catastrophic decompression a whole cr*pload of deadly serious stuff happens all at once, and the craft's survival is a matter of the flight crew doing several critical tasks in a VERY few seconds.

While virtually anything IS a possible explanation for this mystery, most reasonable people will agree that "when one hears hoof beats, one does NOT assume that they're caused by zebras".

Let's explore this further, shall we?