athens in 2005. pilots forget to turn a pressurization switch from manual to auto. at 34,000 feet all 121 on board passed out and froze in their seats. so far we know the malaysian flight was flying for at least seven hours based on pings or signals emitted from the plane. he believes whatever took out the plane s transponder and communications systems, acars, was mechanical and could have also damaged the plane s electronic nerve center which among other things monitors the cabin s climate. that s where you have a decompression. it happens pretty quickly. in a minute or so. in the case of smoke, it could also be quite quick. the pilots have a greater oxygen supply than the passengers do, so they could have remained active for longer. but all of this could have taken no more than, say, ten minutes a t the most. skeptics say the zombie scenario is highly unlikely for the malaysian flight because of the behavior of the plane and