• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Skeletons found near Athens Helios plane crash site

Posted on: Friday, 11 August 2006, 04:43 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category