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Cyprus Plane Reported Past Problems

Posted on: Friday, 19 August 2005, 09:00 CDT

Investigators trying to determine why a Cyprus airliner crashed in the Greek mountains were focusing Tuesday on reports of past technical problems after a former airline mechanic said the jet lost cabin pressure last year because of an improperly sealed door.

Autopsy results indicated that dozens of people, including the co- pilot and a flight attendant, were alive when Helios Airways jet crashed Sunday 25 miles north of Athens, killing all 121 people.

The body of the German pilot, who reportedly was not in the cockpit before the crash, has not been found.

Coroners hope that test results will show if toxic gases rendered the people on board unconscious or whether the passengers and crew were knocked out by a sudden decompression of the cabin and cockpit at 34,000 feet.

Officials said they found only the exterior container of the plane's cockpit voice recorder, hampering investigative efforts.

The voice recorder's internal components were ejected from the container when the Boeing 737-300 crashed, said Akrivos Tsolakis, head of the Greek airline safety committee.

"The only fortunate event in the investigation is that we have the flight data recorder," Tsolakis said, adding that it would be sent to Paris today for decoding.

The plane was flying from Cyprus to Athens. About 30 minutes after takeoff, the pilots reported problems with the air- conditioning system.

Greek state TV quoted Cyprus' transport minister as saying the plane had decompression problems in the past. Decompression would cause a rapid loss of oxygen on board, giving passengers and flight crew a few seconds to put on oxygen masks before losing consciousness amid subzero temperatures. Death would follow minutes later.

A former chief mechanic for Helios, Kyriakos Pilavakis, said the plane lost cabin pressure during a December flight after a door apparently was not sealed properly.

Pilavakis, who said he resigned from the airline in January, gave six hours of testimony to Cyprus investigators, who have seized maintenance records and other documents from Helios.

But Helios managing director Dimitris Pantazis insisted that the plane was air-worthy.

Autopsies have been performed on the 26 bodies identified by relatives, including those of co-pilot Pambos Haralambous and chief flight attendant Louiza Vouteri, which were found close together near the cockpit wreckage, coroners said.

The autopsy results showed all 26 were alive -- but not necessarily conscious -- when the plane crashed into a 1,500-foot- high mountain while being escorted by two Greek F-16 fighter jets after losing contact with air traffic controllers.

German media reported that the pilot was a former East German airline pilot who worked for an agency based in Dublin, Ireland, that supplies pilots to airlines.

The Bild daily newspaper said Hans-Juergen Merten flew with Helios for six months but was a Direct Personnel International employee

Source: Buffalo News

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