- ATHENS (AP) -- A Cypriot
plane crashed into a hill north of Athens on Sunday, killing all 121 people
on board in what officials called Greece's worse airline disaster. At least
one of the pilots reportedly was unconscious when the plane went down,
possibly from lack of oxygen.
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- The Helios Airways flight ZU522 was headed from Larnaca,
Cyprus, to Athens International Airport when it crashed at 12:20 p.m. local
time near the town of Grammatiko, about 40 kilometres north of the Greek
capital, leaving flaming debris and luggage strewn across a ravine and
surrounding hills.
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- The Boeing 737, carrying 115 passengers and six crew,
was to have flown onto Prague, Czech Republic, after stopping in Athens.
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- The cause of the crash was unclear, but it was apparently
a technical problem - possibly decompression - and not terrorism. "The
first indications, in Cyprus and in Greece, are that it was not caused
by a terrorist act," said Marios Karoyian, a spokesman for Cypriot
President Tassos Papadopoulos.
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- The head of the Greek airline safety committee, Akrivos
Tsolakis, described the crash as the "worst accident we've ever had."
He said the plane's black boxes had bee discovered at the scene, containing
flight data and voice recordings valuable for determining the cause.
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- "There apparently was a lack of oxygen, which is
usually the case when the cabin is depressurized," Mr. Tsolakis said.
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- A man whose cousin was a passenger on the plane told
Greece's Alpha television he received a cell-phone text message minutes
before the crash. "He told me the pilots were unconscious. ... He
said: "Farewell, cousin, here we're frozen," Sotiris Voutas said.
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- The plane lost contact with Greek and Cypriot air traffic
control 23 minutes after take off.
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- Two F-16 fighter jets were sent out shortly after the
plane entered Greek air space over the Aegean Sea but did not respond to
radio calls - a standard Greek practice. As they intercepted the airliner
shortly before it crashed, the jet pilots saw one of the pilots slumped
unconscious over the controls, Alpha TV reported. It was unclear where
the other pilot was.
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- The fighter pilots said there was no movement in the
cabin. Some Greek media reports said fighter pilots also could see oxygen
masks dangling inside the cabin, but officials could not confirm that.
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- "It looks like the plane was on automatic pilot"
when it crashed, Helios spokesman Marios Konstantinidis said at Larnaca
airport, in Cyprus.
-
- Greek state television quoted Cyprus Transport Minister
Haris Thrasou as saying the plane had decompression problems in the past.
However, another Helios representative, Giorgos Dimitriou, said at Athens
airport that the plane had "no problems and was serviced just last
week."
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- David Kaminski Morrow, deputy news editor of the British-based
Air Transport Intelligence magazine, said depressurization is extremely
serious because its effects happen so quickly.
-
- "If the aircraft is at 30,000 feet, you don't stay
conscious for long, maybe 15 to 30 seconds. It is like standing on top
of Mount Everest," he said. "But if you are down at 10,000 feet,
you can breath for a lot longer."
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- Airplane cabins are usually pressurized at 8,000 feet.
-
- Sudden loss of cabin pressure was blamed for a similar
crash that took place in South Dakota on Oct. 25, 1999. A private Learjet
35 lost pressure, leaving pro golfer Payne Stewart and four others unconscious.
The twin-engine jet went down in a pasture after flying halfway across
the country on autopilot.
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- In the Greek crash, the only piece of the plane that
remained intact was the tail section. Bits of human flesh, clothing, and
luggage were scattered around the wreckage, which also started brush fires
around the area.
-
- More than 100 firefighters, aided by eight special planes
and three helicopters dropping water, fought a huge brush fire caused by
the crash. Parts of the remains of the plane were engulfed by the fire.
The plane broke up into at least three pieces: the tail, a bit of the cockpit
and a piece of the fuselage section that witnesses said contained a large
group of bodies.
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- Some of the dead were children, although it was not known
how many.
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- Fire trucks and ambulances crowded roads near the crash
site and dark black smoke could be seen rising from various sites around
the crash. A number of black-robed Greek Orthodox Christian were also on
the scene.
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- Rescue workers and residents on the scene said they had
found no survivors.
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- "There is wreckage everywhere. I am here, things
here are very difficult, they are indescribable," Grammatiko Mayor
George Papageorgiou said. "I am looking at the back tail. The fuselage
has been destroyed. It fell into a chasm and there are pieces. All the
residents are here trying to help."
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- Helios Airways was founded in 1999 as Cyprus' first private
airline. It operates a fleet of Boeing 737 jets to cities including London;
Athens; Sofia, Bulgaria; Dublin, Ireland; and Strasbourg, France.
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- Greek Prime Minister Costas Caramanlis cancelled a holiday
on the Aegean island of Tinos to return to Athens to deal with the crash.
The Cypriot president also cancelled a vacation.
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