A plane that crashed into a Greek mountain on Sunday, killing all 121 people on board, including dozens of children, may have been brought down by decompression or lack of oxygen in the cabin, incapacitating the pilots.
As investigators examined the plane’s two black box recorders, recovered at the scene north of Athens, it emerged that one passenger, Nikos Petridis, had sent a SMS to his cousin minutes before the crash. ”The pilot has turned blue. Cousin farewell, we’re freezing.”
Two Greek air force F-16 fighter jets were scrambled when the Cypriot plane lost contact with air-traffic controllers in Athens. Their pilots reported that the plane’s captain was absent from the cockpit, and the co-pilot was slumped over the controls.
A government spokesperson, Theodoros Roussopoulos, said the F-16 pilots reported that oxygen masks could be seen hanging from the cabin ceiling. When the pilots flew by the plane a second time, he said, they saw two people apparently trying to take control of the Boeing-737, but it was unclear if they were members of the crew or passengers.
Greek television reported that early in the flight the airliner’s crew had told air traffic control that there were problems with the air conditioning.
Flight ZU 522, part of the budget airline Helios Airways’ fleet, crashed about 40km north of Athens International airport. It was en route from Larnaca, in Cyprus, to Prague, via Athens.
There were 48 children on board, mostly Greek Cypriots, a Helios spokesperson, Giorgos Dimitrou, said.
Airport authorities in Cyprus and Athens agreed on Sunday night that a loss of pressure inside the plane was ”almost certainly” to blame. ”The pilot appears to have lost consciousness after the plane lost pressure,” said a statement at Larnaca airport.
Speaking to The Guardian, Ioannis Pantazarantos, the head of air traffic control at Athens airport, said the plane failed to respond to radio calls over the Aegean at about 10.30am, one and a half hours after take-off. It is possible that all those on board eventually became unconscious as the plane flew on autopilot for nearly two more hours.
It crashed into a shrub-covered gorge at 12.03pm local time, near the coastal town of Grammatikos. ”It only very narrowly missed buildings,” a witness, Thomas Sotiropoulos, said. The only thing you could see is the tail of the plane.”
Milos Bilaniski, a photographer, said: ”There was thick smoke everywhere coming from the debris spread across the valley.”
One of the pieces of wreckage that remained intact was the tail, with bodies, clothing, and luggage strewn over the hill and in a ravine.
”I saw many bodies scattered around, all of them wearing [oxygen] masks,” one witness told the Reuters news agency.
The fire chief, Christos Smetis, said none of the 115 passengers and six crew survived.
Helios Airways is often used by Britons on budget trips to Cyprus, but the airline could not say on Sunday night whether any Britons were on board.
The head of Greece’s airline safety committee, Akrivos Tsolakis, described it as the ”worst accident we’ve had”. Greek television quoted the Cyprus transport minister, Haris Thrasou, as saying the plane had had problems with decompression in the past.
Officials at Larnaca airport reportedly said on Sunday night the same Helios Boeing-737 had experienced mechanical problems resulting in decompression, a month ago. At the time, the pilot was forced to make an emergency landing at the island’s airport, with several of the passengers purportedly requiring treatment in hospital afterwards.
Kieran Daly, the editor of Air Transport Intelligence, said the cause of the crash was a puzzle. ”There are very good procedures in place for dealing with a lack of oxygen,” he told Reuters. ”There are so many warning systems, the crew should have been aware there was a problem.”
Daniel Holtgen, a spokesperson for the European Aviation Safety Agency, said it was highly unlikely that loss of cabin pressure alone would have caused the incident. ”There would have to be other contributing factors.” – Guardian Unlimited Â