Body of crashed Cyprus plane’s pilot found
By Brian Williams and Philip Pangalos
GRAMMATIKO, Greece (Reuters) – Rescue workers on Monday
recovered the body of the pilot of a Cypriot plane that crashed
in Greece with all 121 passengers and crew believed dead or
unconscious when the Boeing 737 plunged to earth.
Most bodies recovered from the plane were “frozen solid,” a
Greek Defense Ministry source said.
Rescuers said they had also recovered the plane’s two black
box flight recorders, including the one that records pilot
conversations, crucial to determining the cause of the worst
air disaster in Greece and the worst involving a Cypriot
airline.
Relatives of some victims, many already enraged by delays
in Helios Airways releasing details of passengers on board,
were on their way from Cyprus to the crash site near Athens to
start the grim task of trying to identify loved ones.
The Mediterranean island of Cyprus started three days of
mourning with flags at half mast in a long weekend holiday that
is the busiest of the summer for Greeks and Cypriots.
Sunday’s crash perplexed aviation experts astounded by what
appeared to have been a catastrophic failure of cabin pressure
or oxygen supply at 35,000 feet — nearly 10 kilometers (six
miles) up, higher than Mount Everest.
Many questions remained, including how the plane appeared
to fly for nearly an hour with the pilot and co-pilot already
unconscious or dead. Media speculated the plane may have been
on auto pilot before its approach to Athens airport.
There was also mystery over the last minutes of the Helios
Airways Boeing 737 flight which was declared “renegade” when it
entered Greek air space and failed to make radio contact,
causing two F-16 air force jets to scramble to investigate.
TERRORISM RULED OUT
All 115 passengers and six crew died, most burned beyond
recognition, when the plane crashed into a mountainous area
about 40 km north of Athens.
Cypriot Transport Minister Haris Thrassou strongly denied
some media reports that there were 48 children among the dead.
“There were between 15 and 20 young people below the age of
20 on board the crashed plane,” he told Reuters, adding they
were all traveling with their families.
The plane was on a flight from Larnaca in Cyprus to Prague
with a stop in Athens. An airline spokeswoman and Greek
authorities ruled out hijacking or terrorism links to the
crash.
Greek Defense Ministry officials said 90 minutes elapsed
between the alert being raised at 10:30 a.m. and the plane
crashing at 12:03 p.m.
Greek government spokesman Theodore Roussopoulos said F-16
pilots sent to investigate reported that with the pilots out of
action there may have been a last-gasp effort by others on the
plane to bring it back under control.
“The situation was characterized renegade, meaning the
aircraft was not under the control of the pilots,” Roussopoulos
told reporters.
“At a later stage, the F-16s saw two individuals in the
cockpit seemingly trying to regain control of the airplane,”
Roussoupoulos said. It was not known if they were passengers or
other crew.
“The F-16s also saw oxygen masks down when they got close
to the aircraft. The aircraft was making continuous right-hand
turns to show it had lost radio contact.”
“A passenger on the doomed plane said in an SMS text to his
cousin in Athens: “The pilot has turned blue. Cousin farewell,
we’re freezing.”
Greece’s Defense Ministry said it suspected the plane’s
oxygen supply or pressurization system may have malfunctioned,
which could have led to death within seconds for all on board.
Loss of cabin pressure was identified as the probable cause
of two similar but smaller-scale air crashes in recent years.
Golfer Payne Stewart and five others were killed when their
Learjet aircraft crashed in the United States in 1999 after
flying for more than four hours without radio contact.
In 2000 a plane crashed in Australia after flying for more
than an hour from 25,000 feet up with no sign of life on board.
Greek media speculated toxic gas from possible faulty
air-conditioning could have incapacitated the two pilots.