Skeletons found near Athens Helios plane crash site

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek investigators said on Friday they
found three skeletons at the site of last year’s Cypriot
passenger plane crash east of Athens and that they could be the
remains of three people missing from the flight.

The Boeing 737-300 operated by Helios Airways rammed into a
hillside on August 14 last year, the worst accident on record
for either Greece or Cyprus, killing all 121 passengers and
crew on board. The majority of the passengers were Cypriots.

But only 118 bodies had been recovered after weeks of
on-site searches. The human remains were found during a debris
collection operation this week.

“I am here at the site of the crash and we are hopeful that
these three skeletons are of the missing three,” Captain
Akrivos Tsolakis, who leads the investigation into the cause of
the crash, told Reuters.

“They will be sent to the laboratory for DNA testing.”

Investigators are due to release their final report next
month on what exactly caused the plane to crash.

The Helios jet crashed after flying on autopilot for over
2-1/2 hours. It is thought that the passengers were unconscious
by the time the plane ran out of fuel.

Two Greek fighter jets scrambled to intercept what was then
regarded as a “renegade aircraft” and saw the co-pilot slumped
in the cockpit and a steward wrestling with the controls. The
pilot was nowhere to be seen.

Helios has defended its maintenance record but disclosed
the aircraft had previously had decompression problems.

Air decompression reduces oxygen supplies and can lead to
rapid loss of consciousness.