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Masks, Smoke, and Mirrors: The story of EgyptAir flight 804
- geocrasher 2y ago[flagged]
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago[flagged]
- vkou 2y agoWhen it's not clear whether you should trust someone, you should: * Get the necessary background education to understand the subject * Read what they are saying * Determine the reasons for whether or not it is wholly, partially, or not at all logically and factually consistent What you probably shouldn't do is shrug your shoulders, and cite a platitude like "Well, experts have been wrong before! I have no idea who we can trust!" For heavily technical topics, unfortunately, this does require getting tens of thousands of hours of practice in the relevant field, so I can see why it may be less appealing than the lazy alternative.
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoI emphatically agree.
- marcodiego 2y agoBookmarking this answer. This will be my automated response to the usual disrespectful comments by conspiracists on conclusions achieved by strong specialists.
- thomasmg 2y agoThere are alternatives. I usually use a mix of: (a) what might be the motivation of the person / group to say something. (b) what are the risks of lying, and the consequences. (c) are there other voices and the possible motivation of those etc. (d) can someone verify this at least partially.
- 23B1 2y agoYour answer is in fact the lazy one. The topics that are often beset with controversy and conspiracy are heavily technical. "You should do your own research" is fine when we're talking about the fall of Rome or aliens in space. It is dismissive and arrogant to say it when it comes to things like COVID or airline safety - areas where we must trust experts. Shrugging your shoulders at experts who lie about those sorts of topics is a reasonable thing to do because those experts often use their position to further their own agenda, like government officials did during the pandemic or in this case like the Egyptians likely did in the 804 case. If you are truly intelligent then your job is to hold other experts accountable to a high ethical standard in order to earn people's trust – not to look down your nose at people.
- mmooss 2y agoRegarding your point, I mostly agree but I think you can add your own research - not necessarily primary source research - as an input. > "You should do your own research" is fine when we're talking about the fall of Rome or aliens in space. It is dismissive and arrogant to say it when it comes to things like COVID or airline safety - areas where we must trust experts. On a tangent ... why are the fall of Rome or intelligent extraterrestrial life less in need of expert input than plane crashes or Covid?
- mikestew 2y agoI would probably trust them more than some dismissive rando on the Internet.
- soapboxrocket 2y agoReminds me a bit of the UPS Flight 6 that crashed in 2010. Wasn't the cause of the fire, but the fire heated up the co-pilots oxygen system to the point he couldn't wear it and eventually succumbed to smoke hypoxia. Due to smoke in the cabin the pilot couldn't see his flight deck readouts or out the window and eventually crashed into the ground.
- veeti 2y agoFrom the same author: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/alone-in-the-inferno-the-crash-of-ups-airlines-flight-6-507d13f3e481 https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/alone-in-the-inferno-the...
- ddalex 2y agoOne would have to wonder why an emergency smoke extractor fan isn't default equipment - when pilots oxy is deployed a panel should blow outward and a high flow fan start.
- sterlind 2y agoblowtorch effect. depressurizing the cabin and cargo hold is on the checklist for some on-board fires, but the rushing air can produce a blowtorch and spread the fire along. see UPS flight 6 iirc.
- dmckeon 2y agoTragedy from a Swiss cheese failure - several small holes/failures all line up. The issue of halon extinguishers versus oxygen-powered combustion producing many toxins while failing to extinguish is interesting - good that: > Halon fire extinguishers are scheduled to be phased out of most commercial aircraft by the end of 2025.
- wkat4242 2y agoThat's more because of the ozone layer. While it's not good to use halon in a semi contained space like an airplane, it is incredibly effective at killing fire. It really sucks the heat out of it. Thus in most cases the fire is killed quickly and not much toxins are produced. This is important too because fire itself produces a lot of lethal toxins too, most people in a fire don't burn to death but get poisoned by the smoke. So it's a big loss imo. I understand why because it's one of the most potent ozone layer killers. But still.. you're not using the stuff unless you have no other choice. If you're not using it it doesn't end up in the environment. In this case it didn't work because the cargo bay in question was not fitted with extinguishers if I remember correctly.
- bitwalker 2y ago> It really sucks the heat out of it. One of the problems with halon, and the write-up mentions this, is that it is super effective at starving the fire of oxygen, but has zero effect on the heat of the fuel that was burning. So the fire goes out, but if oxygen is reintroduced before the fuel has a chance to cool sufficiently, it reignites - and now not only are you back where you started, but you have all the toxic byproducts that burning halon produces, which will kill you in a hurry if you breathe them in.
- cyberax 2y ago> One of the problems with halon, and the write-up mentions this, is that it is super effective at starving the fire of oxygen That's not actually quite how it works. But yes, the end result is the same. I'll copy-paste my comment from the Medium: That's NOT how halon works! It's a common misconception, but it's incorrect. In fact, halon doesn't react with pretty much anything, it's very chemically stable. You can mix halon with pure oxygen and it'll just sit there, doing nothing. This stability is exactly why it works so well. You need only a few _percent_ of halon by volume to stop the fires, not even close to consuming even a fraction of the 21% of oxygen. Normal oxygen consists of two atoms bonded together (thus "O2"). And fire is spread by oxygen radicals, lone oxygen atoms that have an unpaired electron, eager to make bonds. In a fire, an oxygen radical reacts with a molecule of fuel, and this reaction produces enough energy to create at least one more oxygen radical, sustaining the chain reaction. But halon has these chlorine and bromine atoms, they are bound tightly to carbon, but not as tightly as oxygen would be. So oxygen radicals have enough energy to displace them and bind to the central carbon atom. But the resulting energy release is not enough to create _more_ radicals, so the chain reaction is stopped. Moreover, the chlorine radical can then snap back onto another carbon atom (from the fuel source), releasing a bit of energy, but not enough to create a new oxygen radical. And the cycle can repeat again.
- inglor_cz 2y agoOn a somewhat related note, Egyptian science tends to suffer from a massive scientific misconduct (fraud) problem - see for example this paper by Egyptian authors, which covers the medical field: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.02.20.23286195v1.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.02.20.23286195v... Maybe the attitude towards "truth vs. face" is similar in Egyptian governmental institutions. Egypt in general is a low-trust society, scoring lower than India or Russia, though not much lower than usual in Africa. https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/iab8r7/social_trust_around_the_world/#lightbox https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/iab8r7/social_trus... This indicates that lived experience of the Egyptians themselves, when it comes to trusting others, is somewhat bad.
- aprilthird2021 2y agoOf course it is, it's a brutal military dictatorship where the last (and only) democratically elected leader was overthrown by the army and died in prison. Those kinds of systems, where people are convinced their opinions and convictions don't matter, lead to problems like this
- dash2 2y agoThis might get the causality backward. Most high trust societies were high trust before, not after, they became democracies.
- aprilthird2021 2y agoI think most democracies were founded as such and so the society and democracy were born at the same time
- inglor_cz 2y agoNope, democracies are usually much younger than the underlying societies. For example, the vast majority of Europe is now democratic. 200 years ago, most of Europe was autocratic and even exceptions like the UK were at most very incomplete democracies with limited suffrage. But the constituent nations and ethnicities are very much the same, even though political boundaries have shifted; an English, Polish or Spanish person can read 200 year old texts without much effort. There wasn't any seismic shift comparable to the collapse of the Roman world and the subsequent rearrangement of nations and ethnicities across the continent. Krakow is still Polish, Budapest is still Hungarian and Milan is still Italian. Only in a few places like Breslau/Wroclaw there was a meaningful population shift.
- ngneer 2y agoA rather well-written piece. My takeaway is that the French investigators are pros and the Egyptians are hacks. And that safety culture matters. One must not bend the facts to draw a desired conclusion. One must review the data without bias, or else recuse oneself.
- eddythompson80 2y ago> My takeaway is that the French investigators are pros and the Egyptians are hacks Describing them as "hacks" is weird. In most dictatorships, the concern is usually "What does the country's leadership want the official story to be" rather than "What actually happened". Take this quote from the article for example > "In my opinion, the problem with the report is that it appears to treat the findings of the Triple Committee — the group appointed by the public prosecutor’s office — as the unquestioned truth, and fails to push back on any of its assertions, even the ones that they disagreed with. Instead, because the Triple Committee concluded that a bomb in the galley was the cause of the crash, the EAAID bent itself into a pretzel trying to make the evidence fit that theory. Unfortunately, we don’t know why the Triple Committee and the EAAID chose to die on this hill" EgyptAir is a government owned enterprise. It's managed by the "Ministry of Civil Aviation" who's head is always some general or commander from the Air Force. If the EAAID investigators were allowed to say that there was a "faulty equipment" then a lot of questions would have had to be answered. A lot of questions that have the possibility of embarrassing people all the way up the chain (especially that as mentioned, that particular oxygen mask was reported faulty from another aircraft and removed for maintenance before, and the crew frequently reported that the pilot oxygen supply always decreases on every flight). Saying "it was terrorists" is something that no one has to feel embarrassed about. In fact in 2016 the Egyptian government were in the midst of a lot of arrests and suspension of most freedoms to "curb terrorist activities". And such thing plays well into that narrative. Are you an EAAID investigator who wants to say "it was a faulty oxygen mask"? Ok. How do you fancy you, your brother, cousin, and neighbor spending the next 15-30 years in jail pending investigation on conspiracy against the country?
- ngneer 2y agoYou make a valid point. I stand corrected. "Hacks" is not an accurate term, and fails to account for the full circumstance. I was merely appalled at how willing EAAID were to jump to conclusions and twist facts towards a convenient narrative. France is a democracy, and that makes for an unfair comparison between the two agencies. I am sure that even the most intellectually honest individual will choose their own safety if faced with the reality of imprisonment.
- mmooss 2y agoDoes anyone know the author's background? All I see is 'analyzer of plane crashes'.
- buildbot 2y agoShe is I believe a pilot, and has been doing this for years and years on (originally?) reddit, in great depth and detail. She also has a really fun podcast with two other people called controlled pod into terrain.
- macintux 2y agoA little information: https://www.patreon.com/admiral_cloudberg/about https://www.patreon.com/admiral_cloudberg/about
- sofixa 2y agoShe's one of the best, extremely thorough, and works as a researcher for another very good air crash investigator, Mentour Pilot (YouTube channel).
- kergonath 2y agoI am not sure about her formal credentials, but she’s doing a very thorough job. I could not find a flaw in her explanations involving my field (materials science broadly, and failure mechanics in particular), which is more than I can say of the vast majority of people writing on STEM subjects. I don’t think she has any formal training in the field, but she seems to be talking to the right experts and extracting the right information. I believe she used to be a pilot.
- efitz 2y agoDo you see something in the article that should require credentialing to state?
- Klathmon 2y ago[flagged]
- thxbud 2y ago[dead]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- blueflow 2y agoSee https://avherald.com/h?article=4987fb09/0018 https://avherald.com/h?article=4987fb09/0018 for a technical view.
- userbinator 2y agoIn all tests, the fire, propelled by the oxygen leak, produced a terrifying “blowtorch” effect, and the flames were literally white-hot. Sufficient concentrations of oxygen can cause even steel to burn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_lance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_lance There must be a reason they use pure oxygen, as regular compressed air, also breathable, would not have the same intense reactivity.
- dreamcompiler 2y ago> Sufficient concentrations of oxygen can cause even steel to burn Not just thermal lances; oxy-acetylene cutting torches work by burning through steel, and you can buy one for not much money at almost any hardware store.
- wezdog1 2y agoIt's used due to the low partial pressure of oxygen at high altitudes
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y agoIf you put a human in an environment with 20% of sea level pressure, and feed them 20% sea level pressure air, they will suffocate. If you were to somehow feed them 100% sea level pressure air through a perfectly sealed mask, they will be unable to exhale and/or get some kind of fatal side effects (burst lungs or air bubbles making it into the blood stream). So you have to feed the breathing gas at the surrounding pressure. If, however, you give them 100% oxygen at 20% sea level pressure, they will be able to happily breathe it as if it was regular air with 20% oxygen near sea level, at least until you introduce an ignition source. What matters physiologically is the partial pressure (pressure multiplied by fraction). (Likewise, if you give someone 100% oxygen at sea level pressure for a short time, they'll be fine. Do the same at more than twice sea level pressure, e.g. while diving, and the oxygen becomes fatally toxic.)
- wat10000 2y agoIncidentally, it is possible to provide the breathing gas at somewhat over the ambient pressure. This can allow survival without cabin pressurization at altitudes above the point where even 100% oxygen wouldn’t be sufficient. But the pressures that can be used are well below what you’d need for normal air to be sufficient at a typical airliner cruising altitude.
- amelius 2y agoWith all the high speed trains in Europe, I'm wondering why we don't see more security around them. It seems a much easier target than airplanes.
- shepherdjerred 2y agoI’m guessing it’s because you can’t fly a train into a building
- fragmede 2y agogiven how long and heavy trains are, and how fast they can go, and the fact that rails aren't straight, sure you can. https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-texas-el-paso/news/2024/12/19/train-derailment-in-pecos-leaves-1-dead--4-injured https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-texas-el-paso/news/20... a train crashed into the chamber of commerce building in Pecos Tx 5 days ago.
- shepherdjerred 2y ago…yes, but you can’t do this with a train https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks
- fragmede 2y agoBut you can do all of these: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_involving_railway_systems https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_...
- eddythompson80 2y agoIn all those examples trains are no different than movie theaters, malls, markets, sport and music events, etc. i.e: just places where large groups of people gather.
- ordu 2y ago> if it was a coverup, then the EAAID gave away its own game by attaching the BEA’s comprehensive findings. I'd say, that EAAID had written the report in a way to make the coveraup unmistakable. I mean, the reasoning is not just bad, it contradicts to itself in a way, that to my mind one couldn't achieve without a deliberation. So it is possible that EAAID was forced to support the hypothesis but resisted it in the only way it could.
- ec109685 2y agoBesides not agreeing with the EAAID, nothing in then BEA report makes Egypt look bad. It was a tragic accident and the crew acted admirably. What was the motivation for Egypt to insist on a bomb detonation beyond them believing that is what happened?
- unyttigfjelltol 2y agoI assumed the lavatory alarm sent the Egyptian commission irretrievably down the wrong investigatory path, and couldn't be pulled back. That said, answering your question, an alternative interpretation would read quite a lot of missing context from the pilot's final words on the CVR: > For several seconds, the weak sound of breathing continued, followed by the thud of an object falling to the floor. And then, uttering the last words of flight 804, words heard by no one save for that lonely sentinel, the CVR, he said, “[I] ask forgiveness from God.”
- elashri 2y ago> “[I] ask forgiveness from God.” That's too much reading by a western observer who doesn't understand the religious and cultural aspect of things. This could mean anything from "hoping that God will help us in this difficult situation by admitting your sins" to someone who realizes it is almost the end and as someone who believes in after death then they want to ask forgiveness in the last moments.
- selimthegrim 2y ago
- qingcharles 2y agoThis is wild to me: "Even though passengers have been forbidden from smoking on airplanes for 25 years, the rules about smoking in the cockpit are less straightforward, and international regulations appear to invest the captain with the authority to decide whether smoking will be allowed or not."
- eddywebs 2y agoSounds like rule made by smoking captains for the smoking captains.
- lazide 2y agoIt’s good to be the king?
- eadmund 2y agoWhy is it surprising? There’s no danger from smoking on-board; banning it was never about safety.
- PanMan 2y agoThere is a danger, but not a direct danger (of the plane crashing). It certainly isn't healthy :)
- woliveirajr 2y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varig_Flight_820 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varig_Flight_820 Yes, it was about safety.
- protimewaster 2y agoIt feels pretty obvious that discouraging fire in a fully enclosed space would have safety as a motivating factor, so I'm surprised that multiple people here are arguing that there's no safety component.
- Rebelgecko 2y ago
- stall84 2y agoThis had all the tone from the outset to just be narrowly focussed on this crash-investigation alone, but the writer did dedicate a paragraph to Egyptair Flight 990 from 1999.. An incident that really was one of the first modern airline pilot-suicide's that has never (The NTSB's conclusion) been agreed upon by Egypt. And in the past couple of decades that number has risen at an alarming pace (LAM Mozambique Flight 470 2013, Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 2014, Germanwings Flight 9525 2015) < That extremely frightening and tight grouping of incidents seems to have been followed by a few years of normalcy. Then most recently the China Eastern Flight 5735 that China is still apparently working on a report for, but don't expect much in the way of admission on China's part, of course. But at any rate, there is a noticeable problem in the corps of pilots being selected to fly for several airlines, even really good airlines.
- robocat 2y agoSuicide is more common than we measure and can be impetuous: Three days after a publicized suicide, automobile fatalities increase by 31%. The more the suicide is publicized, the more the automobile fatalies increase. The age of the drivers is significantly correlated with the age of the person described in the suicide story. Single-car accidents increase more than other types just after the publicized suicide. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2778220 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2778220
- coredog64 2y agoFor political reasons SilkAir 185 was ruled inconclusive, but it was almost certainly pilot suicide. Similar to the earlier Egyptair case, the Indonesian authorities were very hostile to the evidence that pointed in that direction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185
- eadmund 2y ago> there was no evidence that the pilots of flight 804 smoked during the flight. But even though the BEA found that a cigarette didn’t cause the fire on flight 804 … the BEA recommended that EASA examine these risks and amend regulations as necessary Smoking had nothing to do with this incident. Their own testing showed that holding a cigarette in the oxygen stream was (surprisingly) not dangerous. The only risk from cigarettes they found was deliberately trying to light oxygen tubing with a cigarette. And yet, despite a complete lack of both relevance and evidence, they included a recommendation to clamp down on pilot smoking. Anti-smoking is hysteria.
- wussboy 2y agoThis is the second pro smoking post I’ve seen of yours on this thread. A curious stance to take. Could a cigarette fall into the mask stowage box and rest against the oxygen tube thus creating a fire? Yes, it could. The entire and complete elimination of this risk is simply solved by forbidding the pilots from smoking, which is already forbidden to the entire cabin crew and passengers. What’s the big deal? Who is harmed by not allowing pilots to smoke?
- eadmund 2y ago> This is the second pro smoking post I’ve seen of yours on this thread. A curious stance to take. I don’t particularly like cigarettes, but I love tobacco and I absolutely hate the moral panic over it. > Who is harmed by not allowing pilots to smoke? The pilots.
- gus_massa 2y agoWhy do they use pure oxygen tanks? Isn't it possible to use a mix of oxygen and nitrogen? Doesn't divers use a mix?
- croemer 2y agoAt high altitudes you need pure oxygen to get appropriate partial pressure of oxygen.