I've not heard about the cracks and the antennae issues, but then Delta doesn't tell the pilots much about any maintenance issues, they just fix it. The article does point out that that airline might have financial issues and not have fixed any cracks.
Here's the part that is nonsense, if all the other normal **** warning systems are working:
"As the cabin slowly loses pressure all inhabitants including the crew would be susceptible to the effects of hypoxia (loss of oxygen, symptoms include confusion, hallucination, disorientation and unconsciousness to begin with, followed by death). A slow loss in cabin pressure would gradually impair and confuse pilots, (due to loss of oxygen), causing pilots not to realize the need for oxygen masks until it was too late. As the crew slowly fall unconscious, this would then explain the "mumbling" heard from MH370 pilots by another aircraft."
Every commercial airliner has a "Cabin Altitude Warning" system to prevent this exact scenario. Remember all those Safety Demo's you've had to suffer through, where the Flight Attendants tell you, "Should the cabin change unexpectedly... (rise up to 11,000' or higher) oxygen masks will drop from ceiling panels over your seats. Pull the mask to the full extent of the tubing, to start the flow of oxygen. Place the mask over your nose and mouth and continue to breathe normally..." Watch the video, at 3:17.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eduNjwNvcH4 OK, the passenger O2 system is completely automatic. As soon as the cabin altitude gets above 11,000' (at a cruising altitude of 35,000' the cabin altitude would normally be at about 7-8,000' if the pressurization sys. is working normally) the O2 masks will drop, by themselves, if the system is working properly. The passengers will have 15 minutes of O2 available through those masks.
Meanwhile, in the ****, as soon as the cabin altitude reaches 10,000' (ten thousand, not eleven, so we have time to fix it or descend prior to the masks dropping) we get a very loud Master Caution/Warning horn, and big red lights in your face. You CANNOT miss this, you cannot sleep through it, as long as all systems are working normally, and they usually are.
Now, we actually practice this scenario in the simulators once a year. The Pilots have real oxygen masks available to them, not the cheese you get in the back. We have real masks with microphones in them, so we can talk to ATC, and smoke goggles, so we can see to fly, and our O2 will last an hour, at 100% O2, not the mix of ambient and O2 you get in the back. As soon as we get a cabin altitude warning, we descend to a lower altitude, so YOU can live. We could stay up at altitude for an hour, you in the back, would be quite dead however. So we practice what we call an "Emergency Descent".
Here's what our O2 masks look like (not a 777, but mask is pretty much the same)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRihhryndDcWith speed brakes extended, we can easily come down at about 6,000' per minute without hurting the airplane (over-speeding it) . You will feel it in your ears, no doubt! If we are at 35,000', it only takes us about 4 minutes to get down to where nobody needs the O2 masks, ie. 10,000', well less than the 15 minutes of O2 your cheesy little masks in the back will give you.
So, the pilots black out on a slow leak? Doubtful. BUT...if there were a fire, with toxic smoke and fumes, the pilots would have their hands full, and they might not have been able to see too well, thus the zig zag course, and they may have been overcome.
BUT...when ever there is a fire on board, we are trained to land IMMEDIATELY! They would have done a 180 and descended back into Malaysia, try to find any runway, what ever is closest. Get it on the ground ASAP and let the local Fire Dept. deal with it. To me, that is what their initial actions looked like. They turned and flew towards the nearest suitable airport. That says smoke/fire to me.
The scenario in the article above, where nobody knows the airplane is unpressurized, would only be plausible if BOTH the cabin alt. warning syst. were inop AND the Passenger Mask Drop system were inop...and if the Pilots were Idiots. As an experienced pilot, you know when your ears are popping, you know what thin air tastes like and you'll know when you start breathing hard. It feels like you are skiing at 11,000', you are out of breath, but you are just sitting there, so why are you out of breath? First thing I check is the PSI. It's highly unlikely, unless Malaysia Air does NO maintenance on their airplanes...and the pilots were morons.
