Like many of you, I recently saw the news on the crashed Greek 737 (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4152806.stm). One of the points brought up was that there was probably a depressurisation that overcame the pilots, so they were in no position to lower the altitude of the plane. The end result is that everyone froze.
This shows that oxygen masks weren't that useful, given the environmental situation. The only thing that strikes me in all this is with all the automated anti-crash systems, there is nothing to automatically lower the altitude of the plane when pressure is lost and no pilot input is provided.
What are your thoughts?