Socata down S. of Jamaica, 2 dead, possible loss of pressure

[whistlerboy02]

Starts at 4:40 and it's pretty much done by 10:00.
Doesn't sound like AtC's fault to me

[oldtimer]

I have had a couple of minor incidents with pressurization. The first, fortunatley, was at FL200 in a cargo configured Cheyenne and what struck me the most was how cold it got and how slow we were getting our O2 masks on but we eventually did and everything turned out OK.(no passengers) The next time was in a very controlled environment in the CAF pressure chamber at FL 250 which was a great learning experience. Then there was the time when the F/O forgot to turn the bleed air on and what was a surprise to me was the lack of physical clues until the cabin altitude alarm came on. I am sure that without that alarm, we could have climbed to a very high altitude before we became aware that all is not well.
Another thing I have noticed, or readabout, over the years is a pilots reluctance to declare an emergency unless there is smoke, fire or pieces are falling off. IMHO, if all is not well, if you declare, you become the boss. If you recognise a problem, as suggested in the ATC recordings, and started down quickly, I am sure ATC would catch on quickly. If I were in that situation, from what I know now, I would not ask for descent clearance, I would TELL ATC I am on my way down. That is what TCAS is partly for. I read about an incident where a US military airplane had a pressure or O2 problem. ATC started to ask if the flight wanted to descend but then mentioned, "I see you are already on your way down".
Incidently, in the King Air 350, if you select "Cabin Pressure Dump", the cabin will dump to 13,500 ft. pressure altitude instead of zero PSID.

[SheriffPatGarrett]

Ha! depressurisation problems, eh? what about DEPRESSION?
Yup, got to be my turn to do two weeks of the night mail out of ABQ to vegas...got in the
plane, a F-27 cargo with the big door and saw the IFR map was NOS instead of Jepp.
Asked the co-pilot...WTF??? He said, you're not going to believe this...the other
captain is very affected because we are going bankrupt...so midway between Albuquerque and Vegas,
at 260, he ripped the Jeppesen IFR map to little bits, yelled:"I'M QUITTING THIS DAMN JOB"!!!
He stood up and kept yelling:"I AM OUT OF THERE"!!! The co-pilot grabbed him by his shirt tails as
the crazy Captain reached for the door opening handle, ripped off his shirt as he was also trying
to keep the wings level. The sudden cold air kind of woke the nutjob and he sheepishly went back to his seat.

They almost had two problems there, Depression and Depressurization(if he had opened the big door and got blown off the plane),
diving 20,000 feet being the third problem...

[boeingboy]

Awwww........F-27's. I miss those guys, good tough birds.

The ex swiss one we had had a real nice glass cockpit. Too bad it cost the company 4x what it was worth.

[Strobes]

N900HK was following me that day. Its the most eerie and disturbing feeling to listen to at least a dozen calls on guard, and knowing the guy is close and not being able to do anything about it. I can't help but feel for the F-15 guys.

Not gonna forget that one anytime soon. Nor forget to do proper 10,000 ft checks.

[pdw]

Its the most eerie and disturbing feeling to listen to at least a dozen calls on guard, and knowing the guy is close and not being able to do anything about it.

Just thinking about it .... that would be kind of weird being ahead of them, and hearing the F-15s doing the accident aircraft's position reports in your vicinity at a nearby altitude.