Officials at Larnaca airport reportedly said last night the same Helios Boeing-737 had experienced mechanical problems resulting in decompression, a month ago. Greek television quoted the Cyprus transport minister, Haris Thrasou, as saying the plane had had problems with decompression in the past. The head of Greece's airline safety committee, Akrivos Tsolakis, described it as the "worst accident we've had". Helios Airways is often used by Britons on budget trips to Cyprus, but the airline could not say last night whether any Britons were on board. The fire chief, Christos Smetis, said none of the 115 passengers and six crew survived. "I saw many bodies scattered around, all of them wearing masks," one witness told the Reuters news agency. One of the pieces of wreckage that remained intact was the tail, with bodies, clothing, and luggage strewn over the hill and in a ravine. Milos Bilaniski, a photographer, said: "There was thick smoke everywhere coming from the debris spread across the valley." The only thing you could see is the tail of the plane." "It only very narrowly missed buildings," a witness, Thomas Sotiropoulos, said. It crashed into a shrub-covered gorge at 12.03pm local time, near the coastal town of Grammatikos. It is possible that all those on board eventually became unconscious as the plane flew on autopilot for nearly two more hours. Speaking to the Guardian, Ioannis Pantazarantos, the head of air traffic control at Athens airport, said the plane failed to respond to radio calls over the Aegean at about 10.30am, one and a half hours after take-off. "The pilot appears to have lost consciousness after the plane lost pressure," said a statement at Larnaca airport. There were 48 children on board, mostly Greek Cypriots, a Helios spokesman, Giorgos Dimitrou, said.Īirport authorities in Cyprus and Athens agreed last night that a loss of pressure inside the plane was "almost certainly" to blame. It was en route from Larnaca, in Cyprus, to Prague, via Athens. Greek television reported that early in the flight the airliner's crew had told air traffic control that there were problems with the air conditioning.įlight ZU 522, part of the budget airline Helios Airways' fleet, crashed about 25 miles north of Athens International Airport. When the pilots flew by the plane a second time, he said, they saw two people apparently trying to take control of the Boeing-737, but it was unclear if they were members of the crew or passengers. Their pilots reported that the plane's captain was absent from the cockpit, and the co-pilot was slumped over the controls.Ī government spokesman, Theodoros Roussopoulos, said the F-16 pilots reported that oxygen masks could be seen hanging from the cabin ceiling. Two Greek air force F-16 fighter jets were scrambled when the Cypriot plane lost contact with air traffic controllers in Athens.
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