Helios Airways flight 522 - WHAT happened?!

The Flight Attendant waving and then pointing down had to be one of those moments that would stay in the fighter pilots mind forever.

You know what hurts the most about this accident?It was so easy to prevent/avoid.

This is easily the most horrific story I've heard on this channel. Something about a plane just auto-piloting and going into a holding pattern with most on board dead or unconscious is just truly upsetting.

A moral of this story… Just because a checklist was uneventful for the first thousand flights doesn’t mean it won’t save your life on the next.

I've been reading recently about how Japanese railway staff use a system called "point and call". They are trained to physically point at the thing they're checking, and speak aloud what they're seeing. This system has been proven to reduce cases of checklist items being skipped or misread. Involving more of your senses sort of forces you to pay proper attention, where a quick glance does not. Maybe it should be considered for pilots.

What scares me the most after hearing each step in this incident is how many times it was said "And that procedure wasn't followed." Everywhere from the pilots... to the engineers... to the ATC. Wow.

Im quite impressed that the aircraft could still fly to its destination, approach, then enter a holding pattern until running out of fuel, all with the pilots incapacitated. Such a tragic accident.

The pilots were probably already beginning to suffer from hypoxia when they contacted the engineer. That would explain why they seemed so confused about the alarm.

The part about the flight attendant signaling to the fighter pilots had me 😪 I cannot imagine how utterly helpless that person must have felt, knowing what was about to happen.

A life lesson, not just for pilots, but for everyone: Safety checks are not there to annoy you. You should always take the extra 2 seconds.

Of all the air crash stories I've heard so far, somehow this one really gets to me. Maybe it's the way everyone on board was rendered totally helpless, either because they didn't understand the situation as was the case for the pilots, or because they did understand but were powerless to do anything about it, as may have been the case for some of the passengers and the rest of the crew. That last person left awake must have spent hours trying to break into that cockpit, contacting someone on the ground, fighting the controls, you name it, all while knowing that at the end they were probably the last person on that aircraft who wasn't dead or severely brain damaged. And to then have to signal to a fighter pilot (perhaps the first awake person they saw after a long time - so close yet so far away), that you're probably going to die. Absolutely harrowing.

You brought tears in my eyes and wake all these memories. I do follow you and one I like about you is that you are trying to explain everything down to the detail in a nice way. It took me several months to watch this video. I use to work with Helios and unfortunately I was the guy to dispatch the aircraft on that day. I talked to the crew and passengers during boarding but no one can imagine what was to come. 15 day prior to the accident I flew with this aircraft and this captain from Athens to larnaca and was a perfect flight. Helios was a small airline but it was the first time that I saw that special bond amongst the staff in all departments. I do agree with what you said but you have to take into consideration the Cypriot culture to be able to understand some chain of events in this accident. I always enjoy watching you explain almost everything that has to do with aviation. Thank you and keep up the good work. Marios Chrysostomou

I had a class in aerospace physiology where we went into a room that could be depressurized to simulate air at different altitudes. At "25,000 feet" they had us take off our oxygen masks and do a simple math test. We had the masks off for 2-3 minutes. After a minute, I could not answer the questions correctly and I was writing at a slant. Later, at "35,000 feet", a select few took off their masks. After 30 seconds, their eyes were open, but the were unresponsive. They were told to put their masks back on and one person was fiddling with his, until the instructor rushed over and put it on him. He woke up startled. Based on my experience, nobody, without oxygen, would have been conscious at 34,000 feet for more than a minute.

This is definitely one of the most haunting accidents in aviation, in my opinion. The fact that everyone was dead except for the last flight attendant as they desperately tried to control the plane is just the stuff of nightmares, truly.

When I did my Emergency Rotation as a doctor my boss always said one thing, ‘think about the life threatening conditions first and make sure it’s not before considering the friendlier ones’. I’m not a pilot but I’m pretty sure cabin altitude warning horn is more important than take off configuration horn when you are already airborne

Imagine being just beside that aircraft in a F16 and feeling completely helpless and seeing 200 people going down. Hard and those airforce pilots will never forget in their entire life

I wish aviation's zero tolerance approach to safety hazards and accident investigations were used more widely in other industries

This was maybe the most tragic of all the airline incidents I've learned about. I appreciate that you handled it with sensitivity and respect, but still managed to be frank about the facts of the case and what we can learn from it.

This is still the only aircrash that really makes me feel devastated. To be in a position with the skills to save the plane and fortunate enough to have been conscious, only to find that you're already too late and destined to spend the last few moments of your life preparing to die alone... That was and still is always hard to digest. If I had been that fighter pilot that saw the flight attendant motioning "down", I would have asked to peel back and not watch the impact. That right there will grab you right in the soul and never let go

All the human mistakes aside, we have to appreciate the tremendous failure of the warning system. With all the complicated computers and sensors, the complete failure to deliver a simple message of "low cabin pressure" is impressive.