News 24, South Africa
Aug 15 2005

Passengers fought for control
15/08/2005 14:17 – (SA)

Athens – Trapped inside a Boeing 737 circling aimlessly in the Greek
skies, a number of the 121 passengers on board a Cypriot airliner
that crashed on Sunday probably knew the fate that awaited them.

Though the recordings of the cockpit’ conversations have yet to be
examined, the report of two Greek F-16 fighter pilots shadowing the
Helios Airways airliner points to a desperate effort to grab the
plane’s controls moments before the fall.

The last glimpse the fighter pilots had into the cockpit showed two
unidentified persons trying to regain control of the plane, the Greek
authorities said.

Minutes earlier, the fighter pilots also saw “the co-pilot slumped
over and perhaps unconscious and the pilot not in his seat”, said
government spokesperson Theodoros Roussopoulos, adding that the
cockpit oxygen masks had been activated.

Victims died before crash

“It seems the deceased, in most cases, although not all, expired
before the crash,” said interior minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos,
though he cautioned it was “something we will have to confirm”.

Among the victims of Greece’s worst aviation disaster were a German
pilot and 10 Greeks were the only non-Cypriots who died, an updated
passenger list revealed. The sombre roll call of the 121 victims
included a four-year-old girl, Theti Nicolaou, and nine other children
aged 10 or less.

The 110 Cypriot dead included four Armenian Cypriots and 106 Greek
Cypriots, the new passenger manifest released by Cypriot communications
minister Haris Thrassou showed.

Details about the Greek dead were still not “100% ” as a group booking
was made through a tour operator, Thrassou said.

Greek aviation experts said on Monday it seemed the plane had a problem
with its oxygen supply, starting about 10 minutes after takeoff from
Cyprus on Sunday.

Greek television reported autopsies would determine whether the
victims died of asphyxiation due to a lack of oxygen in the aircraft.

Plane out of control

Greek air traffic controller Manolis Antoniadis said the plane was
on automatic pilot when it entered Greek air space and began to turn
in circles.

“It was out of control,” Antoniadis said, adding “there had to have
been a fast and brutal problem to cause the death of the pilots in
the cockpit”.

According to the Greek private TV station Alpha, a passenger sent
a text message to a cousin saying: “We’re cold, the pilot is blue.
We’re going to die. Farewell.”

But the authorities are examining the veracity of this claim, as the
same person later apparently claimed to have received the information
by directly speaking to his relative. The SMS itself has yet to be
produced in front of the cameras.

The Helios Airways plane was due to land at Athens airport.

The head of the crash investigation, Akrivos Tsolakis, said on Monday
the plane’s second “black box” containing recordings of the pilots’
cockpit conversations had been discovered but that it was in a “very
bad state”.