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Egad.

So you're saying that the autopilot flew the approach and executed the published miss and entered the hold, all at FL 320? Makes sense if it had some kind of INS that would update off of DME's-- no need to tune the localizer in.

I can understand that-- if they had 320 in the altitude preselect (whatever it's called on the 737) then it would have captured that and leveled off. Since you have to tell it when to start down (there's no VNAV program?) in the absence of a command to descend, it just did the whole thing at altitude. Frightening.

Ok, these are very interesting facts. Last check-in with ARTCC was level at FL 160. They reported the "pressuriziation concern" then requested, and were presumably cleared, for the climb to 320. So they set 320 on the altitude capture and then somewhere after that they experienced the decompression.

Don't the masks automatically drop at 9500 +/- 600 feet?

Would the lack of ice on the windows indicate that the depressurization was not rapid, but progressive? Or would the ice sublimate off after half an hour or so at altitude?