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{{Wikinews|Cypriot plane with 121 on board crashes in Greece}} |
{{Wikinews|Cypriot plane with 121 on board crashes in Greece}} |
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Revision as of 20:55, 14 August 2005
 | This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses, and initial news reports may be unreliable. The latest updates to this article may not reflect the most current information. |
[[Image:Helios-cras-area.jpg|150px|thumb|Crash Area of the flight in red]
Helios Airways Flight 522 (HCY 522) was a leased Helios Airways Boeing 737-31S flight that crashed on August 14, 2005 at 12:04 local time into a mountain between Marathon and Varnavas, Greece. Rescue teams have located wreckage near the town of Grammatiko.
The flight had left Larnaca, Cyprus at 09:07 EEST, was en route to Athens, and scheduled to continue to Prague. The pilot reported a problem with the ventilation system early in the flight. As the plane neared Athens, communication abruptly ceased. No "mayday" distress signal was sent out. After the plane veered off-course two F-16 fighter planes from the Hellenic Air Force 116 Combat Wing were launched from Araxos, Greece. (Other sources report that the F-16s were scrambled from Nea Anghialos.) They noted that the plane appeared to be on autopilot. As per the rules for handling "suspicious renegade" and "renegade" plane incidents, the first fighter approached the ill-fated plane within 3 feet distance (according to in.gr: [1]), while the other stayed behind, within firing range. The fighter pilot saw that the co-pilot was slumped (unconscious or dead) on the controls, while the pilot was not in the cockpit. A while later, they approached the plane again; this time, they saw two persons in the cockpit, seemingly trying to regain control of the plane, but it was unclear whether they were crew members or not. The oxygen masks in the cabin were activated, according to the fighter pilots' testimony. Just before the crash, one of the passengers sent an SMS to his cousin saying "The pilot is dead. Farewell, my cousin, here we're frozen." (source: flash.gr: [2])
At the moment, decompression is suspected as a cause of the accident, but a rapid decrease in cabin pressure should not result in an aircraft crashing unless structural damage occurred. The black boxes on the plane have been recovered, and an analysis of their contents is underway. Unconfirmed reports on Greek television say that the pilot collapsed and that there was a problem with the pressurization system and oxygen supply on board, which released toxic substances in the air. Some reports indicate that this specific aircraft has had similar problems in the past with the air supply system, but they had allegedly been fixed. The president of the Cypriot Social-Democratic Party (EDEK), Vassos Lyssaridis, says otherwise.
Suspicions that the plane had been hijacked were swiftly ruled out by Greece's foreign ministry. Initial claims that the plane was shot down by the fighter jets are refuted by eyewitnesses and the government. Eyewitnesses mentioned that the plane was flying very low, followed by the F-16s (this led some to believe that it was having great difficulties, while others thought it was a VIP flight), and Government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos said that shooting down the plane was not necessary.
According to Greek news media, the plane carried 115 passengers and a crew of 6. The passengers included 59 adults and 8 children who were due to disembark at Athens for a vacation, along with 46 adults and two children who were heading to Prague. More recent reports speak of 48 children on board (confirmed: at this time - 21:55 Greek time - , ERT [3] reports that 85 bodies have been retrieved; among the victims are 48 children). With 121 dead, this is 2005's most fatal plane crash, and only the second accident in this year that caused more than 100 fatalities. The other was Kam Air Flight 904 with 104 deaths. It is the 69th crash of a Boeing 737 since it was brought into service in 1968.
The aircraft was first flown on December 29, 1997 and had been operated by dba until it was leased by privately owned Helios Airways on April 16, 2004 and nicknamed "Olympia", with registration 5B-DBY. Aside from the downed plane, the Helios fleet consists of 2 leased Boeing 737-800s and an Airbus A319-111 delivered May 14 2005.
The incident seems remarkably similar to an incident involving a Learjet on October 25, 1999. The plane suffered an unexplained and sudden loss of pressure in the cabin resulting in all passengers and crew being unconcious. The plane then continued to fly on autopilot for several hours before it crashed in South Dakota killing all passengers and crew.
Timeline
- 09:00 Scheduled departure time.
- 09:07 Airplane takes off from Larnaka airport.
- 10:37 Aircraft enters Athens FIR, but fails to establish contact.
- 10:45 Scheduled arrival time in Athens.
- 10:55 The Hellenic Armed Forces Joint Chief of Staff, Admiral Panagiotis Chinofotis orders military planes to establish visual contact with the aircraft.
- 11:05 Two F-16 fighter planes take off from Araxos, Greece.
- 11:18 Fighter pilots see co-pilot slumped unconscious on the aircraft's instrument panel, oxygen masks deployed, but note no indications of terrorism.
- 12:04 Aircaft crashes near Grammatiko.
- 13:10 Scheduled arrival time in Prague.