On August 14, 2005, a Boeing 737 flying from Cyprus to Athens ran out of fuel and crashed into a mountain after being airborne for more than two hours. The disaster that struck Helios Airways Flight 522 began five minutes after take-off when, at 3,657 metres (12,000 feet), a warning noise alerted the pilot that the cabin altitude had exceeded 3,000 metres amid a drop in pressure. The same alarm sounds on the runway if the plane is incorrectly set for take-off, but neither the pilot nor co-pilot appeared to be aware the noise was a warning.
Even when the oxygen masks dropped a couple of minutes later, they didn’t make the connection. For eight minutes they communicated with the operations centre in Cyprus, and the men on the ground became increasingly confused.
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