Update - found a nice FAA publication on the conscious time after decompression. They are somewhat more generous than my estimate. Page 13 of the text for those interested.

http://www.faa.gov/pilots/training/a...%2061-107a.pdf

No permanent damage though would result unless very long exposure >30 minutes to these altitudes. So, if plane started down, would rapidly regain consciousness when cabin altitude dropped to 18,000 feet or so.

The O2 line theory is a very nice theory. So is the suicide theory. And the terrorist theory. And the black hole theory.

One must assume that some 777s are undergoing AD 2012-13-05 as we speak. Have there been any that have shown evidence of friction or wear. If so, I will gladly join your call to ground all 777 aircraft if not, I can wait.

I will concur that all civil aviation agencies recommend Black Hole avoidance; if avoidance is not possible minimize exposure should one pop up along your flight path; do not fly directly into a black hole.

I agree with SyGunson...you can not rule out eye witnesses ever....

1) a perfect example of why eye witness speak the basic truth and more importantly should not be discounted regarding this accident...the Boeing 777 that crashed in SFO, eye witness said the plane "flew straight up then cart wheeled over"...experts on all the news channels said this was impossible for an aircraft to do and that witness should be discounted....then guess what someone stepped forward and gave the FAA film footage of the plane accident = the crash was exactly how witnesses described.

2) the first time I ever witnessed a night space shuttle launch I was in college in Daytona.....when the space shuttle launched (75 miles from where I was) it light up the whole apartment complex where I was living, you would have thought it was day time...I have seen the "bright light" from the Space Shuttle clear across the other side of florida too.

4) If you can see contrails during the day miles away and miles up in the air you certainly can see something on fire during the night time.

3) Things that Malaysia Airline has not released...how many lithium batteries were on board the aircraft 10,25,100 batteries/how where they packaged/how long did they sit in the Airline holding cargo area before being loaded on board the aircraft (hours or days)/what were the temperatures in the cargo holding hanger/how long did they sit on the aircraft before the aircraft took off/who shipped the batteries/where the shippers on the aircraft/was there say a shipment of seafood packed in dry ice in the same cargo bay as the batteries? these are very important questions that have not been answered.

5) the day time temperatures from this crews takeoff airport were approx 93-99 degrees during the day time and approx 80 during the night time. If these lithium batteries sat for hours/days in the Airline cargo hold hanger area before being loaded on to the a/c then these batteries could have heated up substantially before even being loaded on to the plane. What is the temperature inside the cargo hold area.

6) there have been 140 incidents/accidents with lithium batteries. Could they have been the fire source that the oil rig operator witnessed?

nothing can be ruled out.

Nothing can be ruled out, but viewing an airplane burning 370 miles away, well below the visual horizon, is one that can be ruled out.

GF

"This AD was prompted by a report indicating that a fire originated near the first officer's area, which caused extensive damage to the flight deck. We are issuing this AD to prevent electrical current from passing through the low-pressure oxygen hose internal anti-collapse spring, which can cause the low-pressure oxygen hose to melt or burn, and a consequent oxygen-fed fire in the flight compartment."

I have seen emergency ADs issued for a lot less.

Actually, you can rule out eyewitness reports - quite often. If you've been through aviation safety school, you will have seen graphic evidence of the unreliability of eyewitness accounts. Not always but quite often. How many eyewitness accounts of "surging engine noise" are reported in small plane crashes when it turns out the plane crashed with empty gas tanks?

Lithium battery fire? Unless it was a small quantity, even a halon system for the belly cargo (don't know if pax carriers have that) is used, large quantities of runaway lithium batteries won't be stopped. If it were a major battery fire, it likely would have burned through and brought down the plane relatively quickly. See the UPS Dubai fire and crash. And what happened then? The crew came up immediately and asked for vectors to the field. They were talking to ATC A LOT. These guys, nothing.

If nothing can be ruled out, then I vote for flying through a black hole.

If nothing can be ruled out, then we might as well kvetch about it with know nothings on CNN for the next 20 years. Things can be ruled out, at least as compared to others given the minimal evidence which has been found. Considering the major brain power which puts the crash site SW of Perth, I think we can discount the oil rig guy. And the black holes.

LightAttack....I highly doubt that the NTSB and Boeing for the matter have ruled out the battery cargo as not a cause of this aircraft crash. Why has Malaysia Airlines not released the load manifest for their cargo? Why will they not state the number of batteries they were shipping? Why did they lie about the batteries being on board in the first place then change their story to say they were shipping batteries but that it was normal for airlines to do so?

Keep in mind that Malaysian Airlines is partly owned by the Malaysian Govt...they want to shift the blame away from them to say Boeing so that the law suits get shifted away from the Airline. Their lawyers have been working over time since the first day...it's all a legal game.

As for CNN we all know that they feed the masses bs with every story to sell ad space at a premium dollar. So yes CNN's bs can be ruled out.

This was in the news:

Lithium metal batteries deliver extremely high densities of energy, and if they are mishandled they can catch fire, a fire that can't be extinguished with halon, the most common kind of fire-suppression systems in passenger aircraft.

That's one reason the FAA banned shipments of nonrechargeable lithium metal batteries on passenger planes in 2004. But that ban only applies in the United States; international authorities are still considering whether to enact such a rule. Cargo and passenger aircraft are free to carry lithium ion batteries, although they are subject to labeling and packing regulations.

So what was on board Flight 370? Malaysian officials, after saying the cargo manifest would "be released in due course," later got a little more specific and said the Boeing 777 was carrying 440 pounds of lithium ion batteries. What else? Nothing that would cause a problem, the Malaysians assure us.

An Australian news media report said the Malaysian government refused to release the manifest to the Australian government, which would find such information helpful as it tries to map out a search.

Then you should know there is a trade off. I think the going FAA rate for a human life is 6 million. Everything works back from that. You're going to ground every 777 costing who knows how much to the airlines and the economy to prevent something that happens once a decade.

From the missing plane?

Possible Fire Suppression Bottle of an aircraft lands on Maldives beach