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New Safety Fears As Greek Crash Airline Diverts Plane

Posted on: Saturday, 20 August 2005, 12:00 CDT

Passengers last night spoke of their anxiety after a plane operated by the company involved in last weekend's Greek air disaster had to divert to Stansted airport.

The Helios Airways Boeing 737 had been due to land at Luton but switched to Stansted aftera problem with the aircraft flaps. The plane, which had set out from Larnaca with 177 passengers aboard, landed safely at Stansted at 10.35am and is being checked.

Passenger Christina Hamshaw, of Boston, Lincolnshire, said: "How could we not be scared(after last week's air crash). We were not terrified because we were reassured by the pilot."

Her daughter Sonia added: "About seven minutes before we landed in Luton the pilot said there was a problem with a flap on the wing. It would not go fully up so as a precautionary measure we had to go to Stansted where the runway was longer. He said it was just a precautionary measure.

"We were not afraid because he said it wasn't anything serious, nothing could go wrong with it. Some passengers were anxious but that's only fair." The plane landed safely and the passengers were taken by bus to Luton.

A Helios spokeswoman said: "The pilot reported a technical problem and the weather was very bad at Luton and Stansted has a much longer runway so it was decided to divert

Source: Birmingham Post; Birmingham (UK)

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